


Five Minutes to Midnight

by So_Caffeinated (so_caffeinated)



Series: Daybreak [2]
Category: Prison Break
Genre: Canon Compliant, Death, F/M, Gen, Language, Post-Canon Fix-It, Sequel, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:29:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/so_caffeinated/pseuds/So_Caffeinated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Finding out that Michael is still alive and has been held by The Company for four years might be life-altering for Sara and Lincoln, but it's also just the beginning...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I highly recommend reading "Into The Dark" first, as this story will make more sense having done so.

Chapter One

Accepting Michael's death had taken time, months and years of denial and anger and feigned ignorance. With Jane's words hanging heavily in the air - _"Michael's alive, Lincoln. And we're going to get him back"_ \- Lincoln wondered if accepting that his brother _wasn't_ dead would take just as long.

Jane and LJ were talking, heatedly discussing something, talking to him, but he didn't hear any of it. Their voices rattled around in the background like the tinny sound of speaking through cans connected by a string, like he and Michael had done when they were kids.

"We have to tell Sara!" LJ declared, his voice breaking through the fog that was mucking with Lincoln's head.

" _No_ ," he insisted resolutely, speaking up for the first time since Jane's revelation.

"What? Why not?" LJ asked, clearly stunned. "She's got a right to know, dad. She'll be so happy. Why wouldn't we tell her?"

Linc ran his hands over his smooth scalp, eyes locking onto the image of his brother pacing on the monitor. So close, so _fucking_ close, but so damn out of reach all the same. He wanted to jump through that screen, pummel whoever was holding his brother captive and pull Michael back into his house, into the real world. Sara would want that, too. She'd gone through hell after he'd died and the last thing she needed now was something as toxic as _hope_ dragging her back down.

"She doesn't need to know yet," he said simply.

"She's an asset, Lincoln," Jane protested. "I have resources for this mission, but I don't have everything we need."

"You've got me," Lincoln levelled with her, eyes boring into hers intensely. "You don't need Sara."

Her head quirked to the side and her eyes narrowed at him challengingly. And, shit, he knew this was going to be a battle. Sofia had given him the same damn look when he'd suggested that they convert the spare bedroom into a man-cave.

"Unless you've gone to medical school since last we spoke, then we need her, too," Jane argued. "All we've seen of him is this feed and he's not always in this room. We have no idea what kind of shape he's in, not really. He won't be the first person we've recovered from The Company and I can assure you that after four years of imprisonment, he's going to need help in one way or another. But more than that, I'm not convinced he'll go anywhere with anyone unless he sees that both you and Sara are safe."

"Look, lady, I appreciate everything you're doing here, but we're not involving Sara," Lincoln countered, putting his foot down. "I will bodily haul his ass out of there, but the doc's not getting involved!"

The air was taut with oppressive anxiety and tension, the weight of this newfound reality bearing down on him like the world on Atlas' shoulders. This was his brother, his responsibility. And he would save him, again, because they were family and they would always, _always_ , save each other. He could no sooner forget that, deny that, than will his heart to stop beating. But Sara and Sofia and Mikey and LJ were family, too. They all needed him, too. Needed his protection with the eyes of The Company trained on them through their crosshairs. Even with his mind whirring at a breakneck pace, Lincoln's thoughts felt sluggish. He was right - he _knew_ he was right - and he wasn't about to back down.

It was too much to process, too many new concerns, too many risks in all their lives that hadn't existed for them twenty minutes ago. But Michael was alive.

_Michael was alive._

He was staring at him, older, grayer, harried looking, but _living_. And the words just kept playing over and over in his head.

_Michael'sAlive. Michael'sAlive. Michael'sAlive._

Maybe if he repeated it to himself enough times, it would soak in. This wouldn't feel like the best and worst dream he'd had in years.

"Looks like that's not your call," Jane said, drawing him back to the here-and-now.

His eyes snapped up to the blonde's face before following her gaze toward the back door where LJ now stood with Sara. He'd been so distracted, so encompassed by this, that he hadn't even registered his son leaving. One glance at the look on Sara's face told him he was too late to shelter her from this.

"LJ, what did you do?" he asked gruffly and mostly rhetorically.

"She's got a right to know her husband's alive, dad," LJ responded.

Sara paid no attention to either of them, though Lincoln knew with absolute certainty that they'd have words at some point about him wanting to keep this from her. With what could only be described as tunnel-vision, she walked as if in a trance toward the laptop, kneeling down at the coffee table's edge and drawing the screen nearer.

"Sara," he said gently, not really sure what to follow it up with but hoping in vain to divert her attention from the screen in front of her.

She gave no indication of hearing him at all, one hand covering her open mouth and the other running over Michael's form on the screen in front of her. He felt uncomfortably like a voyeur in that moment and, judging from LJ's shuffling feet and Jane's diverted gaze, he wasn't the only one. There was so much rawness in her face, so much naked emotion in her wide, watered eyes and ashen skin that he couldn't bare to watch.

"Sara," he tried again and this time he felt her gaze shift to focus on him.

She rose up from the floor, shoulders set and tears blinked back. He could damn near see it as the rawness bled from her features and the determination set in her eyes. Suddenly, he wasn't looking at the sister-in-law who'd cried on his shoulder and failed to cope so miserably for so long. He was looking at a prison-doctor-turned-fugitive, a woman who'd been tortured and kidnapped and incarcerated, who had never, ever lost her cool when it mattered.

"So," she said after a beat, her voice surprisingly clear. "What's our plan?"

To Sara's side, Jane was openly appraising the other woman, a thin, impressed smile gracing her lips. Sara's quick-switch to a professional demeanor, her ability to focus on the problem at hand regardless of how personal it might be, had clearly surprised the other woman and earned her respect.

"Doctor Scofield," Jane pronounced and Sara looked to the other woman for the first time since entering the room. "We haven't met. I'm Jane Phillips. I worked with your father-in-law."

"I know who you are," Sara told her. "It's good to meet you. What can you tell me about situation?"

Her brusqueness might have seemed rude or dismissive to some people, but Jane had never been one to mince words and Lincoln was pretty sure that all it had done was endear her to the other woman more.

"We have an inside man at the facility where he's being held, which is on an otherwise-deserted island. As best as we can tell, The Company managed to resuscitate him after his electrocution in Miami and then successfully performed brain surgery to address his tumor," Jane outlined.

"No signs of a recurrence?" Sara asked clinically. "Headaches? Nosebleeds? He'd hide them."

"He's surveilled constantly," Jane said, shaking her head. "There've been no signs of problems on that front that we've seen. We aren't able to access the other video feeds, but we know there _are_ some and The Company views him as too large an asset to allow something like that to go unnoticed."

"Why Uncle Mike? That's an awful lot of trouble to go to for one man. What are they using him for?" LJ asked, brow knit in concern in a way that reminded Lincoln painfully of Michael.

"Code-breaking, we believe," Jane said, glancing at her watch as she spoke. "It's an educated guess, but we know that there are factions within The Company trying to get a firm grip on it with the General finally dead. He had assets - money, contacts, blackmail material - that could virtually ensure one group's dominance over the other. But, since no one appears to have cinched the top spot, we believe no one's found it yet. Or, at least, no one's _decoded_ it.

"As you are intimately aware, the General was quite fond of incredibly intricate security systems. If we're right and that's what they've got Michael working on, it's taken him four years and he _still_ hasn't finished the project. Given that, I think it's safe to say that there are few people with the skill level to begin to decode the General's data," Jane finished, standing up as she spoke.

"You said you had assets," Lincoln stated.

"I do," Jane confirmed. "One of which is the jamming device blocking the bugs in your house right now from transmitting our entire conversation to the Company men camped out three-hundred yards to the south of your house."

"What?" Lincoln asked, his voice raising substantially in volume.

"I told you that you'd been being watched," Jane said, raising an eyebrow at him in thinly-veiled amusement. "Did you think I meant only visually?"

"Where the hell are the bugs?" Lincoln asked irately.

"Don't be ridiculous, Linc," Sara said, arms folded in front of herself as she shot him a warning look. "If there's a faster way to tip them off that we know something, I'm not sure what it would be."

"I'm glad to see one of you is thinking clearly," Jane pronounced, closing the laptop as she spoke, it's resounding click making Lincoln flinch, suddenly panicked and desperate to see his brother's face again.

He must have said something about the laptop, but for the life of him he couldn't remember doing so. Or maybe Jane was just far too perceptive, senses honed by decades of serving as some kind of soldier in a global undercover war.

"I have to take it with me, Lincoln," Jane said, earning his hardened gaze. "You know that. I can't leave evidence like this where we _know_ The Company is watching. It was dangerous enough bringing it here in the first place."

"If we fixate on that then we aren't focused on how to get him back," Sara added, her voice so much smaller than Jane's but resounding so loudly.

"Also true," Jane acknowledged, tucking the laptop under her arm before pressing her finger to her ear against a small headset that Lincoln hadn't noticed before.

"I'm being told that the Company agents are getting concerned about the lack of noise being picked up by their bug," Jane told them. "We'll meet tomorrow afternoon. Three o'clock, exactly four miles due west of your dive shop. Our boat is called The Sea Queen. Until then, I don't have to tell you to be careful about what you say, do I? Nowhere is safe. They are watching. They are listening. And if you mess this up, all of us are dead and Michael will spend the rest of his life in Company hands."

She was going to leave it at that, her long gait striding steadily toward the door. For not the first time, Lincoln found himself wondering why Jane was going to such lengths for the sake of his family. Whatever she and Aldo had been to each other - friend, partner, lover or a combination of all of those things - certainly she'd fulfilled any obligations to them she might have assigned herself years ago.

"Hey," Lincoln said, careful to avoid saying her name in case the bugs were working again.

Her steps stuttered and she glanced back at him, blonde ponytail swaying sharply behind her.

"Thank you," he said, voice rife with sincerity.

She tilted her head in acknowledgement and tossed out a wink before slipping out the door into the inky dark of night.

The silence in her wake was palpable and it suddenly struck Lincoln as somewhat hilarious that now that the bug was most certainly working again, no one was saying anything to be picked up by the agents they now knew were spying on them.

Laughter bubbled up inside him, escaping in a loud and manic kind of way. None of this, not one bit of it, was funny. It was terrifying and hopeful. It was devastating and enrapturing. Michael was alive. Michael was a captive. And four years after finally escaping the whole conspiracy and securing their safety, they found out they'd never been out of danger in the first place. It was anything, _everything_ but funny.

For all those reasons, Lincoln laughed.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Sleep was elusive for Sara that night. Michael's pacing form seemed imprinted on the insides of her eyelids. Every time her eyes drifted shut, weighed down by stress and exhaustion, she could see him as clearly as she had on that laptop screen.

Guilt sunk low in her belly at the video loop in her mind. How could she have not known he was alive? Shouldn't she have felt something? Had some inkling? Some sixth sense?

No, that was ridiculous. She was a doctor, a logical person. She knew, _knew_ her guilt was misplaced. Still, she couldn't quite shake it, the feeling that she'd failed Michael somehow.

Would he have known? If it was the other way around? Would his incredible mind have somehow deduced that she'd survived and needed his help? Instinct told her yes, but experience told her no. After Panama, he'd sought revenge; he hadn't sought her. He hadn't known that she was still breathing, still needed him. Maybe that should have been a comforting thought, but it wasn't. All it did was underscore all the time they'd lost, all the time wasted where they could have been building a life together.

That she was livid with Lincoln for trying to keep Michael's existence from her was an understatement. Shortly after Jane had left, she'd scrawled a quick note and held it up for him to see. _This isn't the time or the place, but we_ will _have a conversation about this later, Lincoln. You had no right to try to keep this from me._ His jaw had set in response, a hard line that she knew well. They were going to butt heads on this, of that much she was sure.

Cognizant of the danger that even a written message presented, she'd shoved the paper down the garbage disposal and faked a cheery goodbye before heading back home to relieve Sofia of her impromptu babysitting duties.

Her son, her beautiful little boy, had been asleep when she'd gotten home. His pale eyes masked by long dark lashes feathering against his face, his sweet little lips parted slightly as he breathed the steady beat of sleep. Her heart clenched at the sight, knowing the coming days would see them parting ways and put her life in danger. The idea of leaving her three-year-old in someone else's care, knowing she might never be able to return to him, was unthinkably brutal. But she also knew she couldn't stay behind while others tried to wrench her husband free from The Company's grasp.

It was an impossible situation.

Hours later with her thoughts still racing and her anxiety level no lower, she'd sleeplessly wandered from her large comfortable bed and made her way back to her little boy's room. Shoe-horning herself between the sleeping toddler and the wall, she draped her arm around his middle and pulled him close, breathing in his scent and letting her fingers drift through his downy hair.

It ought to have been far from comfortable, a too-tight squeeze, but as Mikey sighed contentedly and cuddled up against her, she felt her tension melt for the first time since LJ had burst into her kitchen the evening before with impossible secrets spilling from his lips. And, in the pale blue room with trucks and cars painted across the walls and legos and tinkertoys spilling out from a toybox, she finally drifted off to sleep.

The dreamscape was instantly recognizable, having been a source of comfort and heartache to her night after night for years on end. The walls were starkly white with neatly hung posters of anatomy. The window, she noticed, had no bars on it. This was a first in her countless dreams of this place and she wondered for a moment what, exactly, that signified.

Then, she heard his voice, so close behind her, and thought of windows and bars faded away.

"Sara," he said gently, voice ghosting across the back of her neck in a whisper.

She shuddered a little and her eyes clenched shut, but she fought turning around even though every instinct she had told her to grab and hold on and never let go. She would live in this dream, sometimes, if she could. But she could no sooner stay here than live in the dream Michael had sold her all those years ago. That was the dirty little secret about dreams that no one voiced. They were ephemeral, gossamer strands of hope that broke under the strain of reality.

"Look at me, Sara?" he asked, a note of pleading in his voice.

"I can't," she exhaled. "I can't."

"Why not?" he asked, hands skimming down her arms and _God_ she could feel that like it was real.

"Because you'll disappear if I do," she told him, voice catching. "And I can't handle that. Not again."

At first, when the dreams had started, it hadn't been like that. She'd been able to see him and hear him and touch him like he was real. It had been brutal and fantastic all at once, waking night after night to the fading memories of dreamworld trysts and the looming reality of her widowhood. But as time had passed, the dreams had grown more scarce and he had faded in definition over the years. There were so few photos of him and she couldn't _quite_ remember anymore how his jaw curved or that particular half-smile he'd perfected or how wide the bridge of his nose was. It _hurt_. It hurt like losing him all over again as he faded in her mind's eye but never in significance.

"I can't watch you blur and fade in front of me, Michael. I just can't," she choked out, sparing a glance down to his long fingers that encircled her wrist. "Not now."

"I won't, Sara," he promised in earnest. "I _won't_. Not this time."

She couldn't resist him when he took on that tone. She never could, in life or dreams. Gulping heavily and jaw quivering with hope and apprehension, she turned slowly, never letting go of the hand that had slid down to hers, as if she could physically hold him in place should he start to fade away.

He stared down at her with sad, pale eyes, a rueful smile playing across his well-defined lips and she choked back a sob at how very clear he was, how real he seemed. He wasn't the Michael of her memory, not exactly. He was the Michael of now, the Michael of the video she'd just seen, hair too long and too gray. But that scarcely mattered. It was Michael, _her_ Michael, and then or now she loved him down to the roots of her soul.

"Oh Michael," she sobbed, collapsing under the weight of everything, her free hand threading through his too-long curls. "Oh God, I miss you. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I should have known."

"Shh," he hushed her gently, pressing a ghost of a kiss against her forehead, her eyelids, her cheekbone. "It's okay, Sara. It's going to be okay."

Her head curved to the side, lips catching his in a light but desperate kiss. She couldn't not kiss him in that moment, but she was terrified if she pushed too much, pressed her lips too hard against his, that he'd dissolve beneath her touch.

"I miss you, too," he breathed, the vibration of his words rumbled across the landscape of her lips, their mouths still scarcely touching.

She pulled back to look at him again, hands tracing the sides of his face like she was reading braille, re-memorizing the curve and texture of him. So intent on him was she that she nearly missed as the posters over his shoulder faded away. Hands still on his face, her gaze darted sideways to watch the open window solidify into a part of the white wall. It wasn't her infirmary anymore. It was fast becoming the room in the video.

"What's happening, Michael?" she asked, voice panicky as she looked back to his pained expression.

"It's okay, Sara," he told her again, his hand threading through her hair as he spoke. "You've got a plan to make all this right."

"I don't!" she protested heartily, hands tracing the lines of his neck as a sense of urgency settled over her. "I don't know what to do!"

"You will," he informed her, certainty evident in his voice. "I know you will. It won't always be like this."

He stepped back and she nearly lunged forward trying to keep hold of him, but he already seemed less solid somehow and she knew if she touched him again her hand would find nothing but empty space.

"Don't do this. Don't leave me, Michael," she pleaded, fully aware of how desperate her voice sounded.

"Sara," he said sympathetically, regretfully. "I was never really here."

She wanted to close her eyes against the sight of him fading into a fog of nothing, but couldn't. He and the room both dissolved right in front of her, leaving her alone. Again. As always.

A broken sob wrenched free from her and she wrapped her arms around herself as she stared at her toes, trying so hard to ignore the ill-defined expanse of nothingness around her.

"Mama?" came a little voice and her eyes snapped up to see her little boy standing a few feet away, still clad in his firetruck pajamas and holding onto his beloved, tattered bunny rabbit.

"Mikey?" she asked, furiously scrubbing away the tears staining her cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

"Mama?" repeated a little voice, crossing the bridge from dreams to reality, pulling Sara fully from her battered dreamscape. "Is Bob Builder awake on the TV?"

"Yeah, Mikey," she replied automatically, voice gravelly and hoarse from tears she hadn't really cried. "Just give mommy a minute and I'll get it set up for you."

The dream had rattled her down to her core and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear with still-shaking hands. It had been months since she'd dreamt of him and years since it had felt that real. It was jarring and intoxicating and heart-breaking. But mostly, it settled her with a renewed sense of determination. She might not have a plan yet, but she _would_. And then she would have him back. The alternative, fast-fading bittersweet dreams on repeat in her mind, was a possibility she refused to consider.

It was going to be a long day. She had nine hours until the meeting with Jane - nine hours of faking normalcy when every instinct she had was screaming that she needed to save her husband _now_ , she needed to get rid of the surveillance on them, she needed to have it out with Lincoln about trying to keep her out of the loop. Nine hours to go completely mad.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes to find her little boy standing in front of her, bouncing on the balls of his feet with an energy that only very small children seemed able to possess.

"Bob Builder! We can fix it! We can fix it!" he said in a sing-song voice, a grin taking over his whole face.

She reached out and tugged him to her, pulling him into a fierce hug and kissing the crown of his head. He allowed it for a moment, her usually cuddly boy, before wriggling out of her grasp and looking up at her with big blue-green eyes.

"Bob Builder on the TV _now_ mama?" he asked hopefully.

"Yeah, yeah. You've got a one-track mind, buddy," she told him, rising to her feet as he scampered off as fast as he could down the hall toward the television. "...wonder where you get that from."

Before long, she found herself absorbed in the routines of the day, the morning slipping by with surprising ease. Crisis or not, earth-shattering revelations or not, Mikey needed breakfast and a diaper change. Laundry had to be done. Dishes from last night still sat in her sink. It was tedious, yes, but Sara was grateful for the slew of menial tasks that generally encompassed her mornings regardless.

It wasn't until just after lunch, when Mikey nodded off for an afternoon nap, that everything caught up with her. She stood in the doorway to his room, watching her little boy's chest rise and fall under the comfort of a well-loved Thomas the Train Engine blanket. He was so innocent. So at peace. He had no idea how much the world, how much _his_ world had changed in the last 24 hours. And he had no idea how much it was about to change more.

Even in the best case scenario he'd be separated from her for days, left to someone else's care while she risked her life. Sofia, she felt sure, would be both able and willing to take on the task. But the worst case scenario... she tried not to think about that, but couldn't help it. She knew full well how dangerous any rescue attempt would be and the very idea of her son growing up an orphan made her nearly retch.

There were still chores to be done, peanut butter handprints to be scoured off the sliding glass door and legos to pick up in the living room, but she couldn't tear herself away from the sight of her little boy sleeping to do something as silly as clean up a home they'd likely never return to. She etched the scene into her mind, holding onto the sight of her son in the comfort and safety of his own room as long as she could.

"Hi mama," he said eventually, smiling at her broadly as he yawned.

"Hey buddy," she replied. "We're meeting Uncle Linc and Sofia and LJ for a boat ride soon. Won't that be fun?"

"Yay!" he cheered enthusiastically.

"Go find your life vest while I pack some juice, okay?" she asked him and he barrelled out of bed to set about his task.

They were going to be early, she realized, glancing at the clock as she filled a small cooler with juice and cheese and fresh fruit. But she couldn't make herself sit around the house any longer. She could only feign interest in household chores and rereading books to Mikey about Sid the Science Kid for just so long.

As it turned out, being early was fine. Linc, Sofia and LJ were all early as well, the trio already hanging out aboard the boat as she and Mikey approached it twenty minutes later.

She raised her hand to her brow to block the sun from her eyes as she glanced seaward. The wind was stagnant, the sea a solid pane of unrippled glass, in stark contrast to the turmoil she knew was roiling underneath the surface for each of them. It felt wrong, somehow. Ill-fitting that nature defied their own sense of unrest.

Something seized in her briefly as she wondered if that damned Company island sat somewhere west of them. Was she looking toward Michael even now? Were the seas calm where he was, too?

_Hang on, Michael,_ she thought to herself, a prayer internalized. _We're coming. I swear it. We're coming._

"You comin', Doc?" Lincoln's voice rumbled and she jolted from her thoughts, head swerving to find him offering her and Mikey a steady hand onto the boat.

"Definitely," she replied, smile broad and confident as she grasped his hand and took the step on-board.

They got underway moments later, the familiar sight of the dive shop and the dock quickly fading into a pinpoint along the horizon. A wind of their own making whipped through Sara's hair as the boat sped along calm seas. It was liberating, in a lot of ways, felt like freedom and progress as they broke away from shore and the undoubtedly watchful eyes of Company agents. Still, even with the loud, constant rumble of their outboard motor, Sara knew better than to trust the illusion of privacy until Jane gave the go ahead after they met up.

"Sara, about yesterday..." Linc started with heavy eyes and a determined voice.

"Not now, Lincoln," she replied with obvious irritation. "We _will_ be having a conversation about that, but let's make sure... little ears aren't around to overhear it?"

She nodded her head toward shore rather than the direction where Mikey sat looking at pictures of fish with LJ on an underwater sealife guide. Lincoln gave her a bit of a disbelieving look, clearly feeling more at ease to talk than she did, but nodded anyhow and headed back to Sofia's side as she manned the boat.

They reached their rendezvous point thirty-five minutes early, killing the motor with nothing and no one in sight. The illusion of wind died away and as their wake faded the sea became so flat that it felt like she could step off the boat and walk across it. White-knuckled with her hands clenched against the aft railing, Sara waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Minutes ticked by like hours. The sense of anxiety and urgency she felt did nothing to speed up the ticking of her watch. It had been years since she'd felt this on-edge and she was surprised to find that she'd actually forgotten how much she hated the sensation.

As it turned out, Jane was - not surprisingly - exactly on time. She was also not alone, something Sara realized well before Jane's ship cozied up to theirs as she watched it approach. Thinking back, Jane _had_ indicated there would be others with her. But things had been so earth-shattering last night, so overwhelming, that she hadn't really considered that fact until now. And now? Now, she was wondering who these people were, why they cared, what they wanted.

She had a measure of trust for Jane because Lincoln did and because she'd come to them laptop in hand with evidence of Michael's survival. But she couldn't help remembering that one of Jane's people had betrayed them before, a Company spy who'd gotten shots off at Lincoln and LJ in the middle of a supposed safe house.

"Mikey?" she called, drawing her son's attention away from LJ's apparent marine biology lesson. "I need you to go downstairs and play with toys. And I want you to turn on music or the TV, okay?"

"I can watch Bob Builder?" Mikey asked with an air of disbelief.

"As many as you want until one of us comes down to get you," Sara confirmed, breaking several rules she'd set years ago.

Mikey didn't question his luck, bolting for the cabin door with a happy squeal as he went.

"Forget toys. I'm giving him a TV marathon next Christmas," LJ laughed as he watched his cousin scamper off.

"The less he knows right now, the better," Sara reminded LJ shrewdly.

The understanding look that washed over LJ's face told Sara that he'd not really thought over the inherent problems of having a three-year-old around while plotting a top secret rescue mission. One little slip to a friend, a neighbor, a grocery store clerk saying "My mama says my daddy is coming home and I get to meet him" overheard by the wrong person and the consequences could be so, so dire.

"All clear," Jane's voice rang out as she pocketed some electronic device before stepping over from her boat to theirs. "No listening devices and no unexpected heat signatures aboard."

In spite of her words, two of Jane's four companions kept their eyes on the horizon, surveying their surroundings with methodical, practiced ease. The other two holstered their previously-drawn weapons but looked ready to spring into action any second. All things considered, this was probably a good thing. But Sara couldn't help thinking that their version of 'all clear' and hers were decidedly different.

"Who are they?" Lincoln asked, arms crossed in front of his chest as he nodded briskly toward Jane's companions.

Apparently he hadn't forgotten being shot at by Jane's people before either.

"My team," Jane replied. "Greg Martin, Pedro Rodriguez, Natalie Stark and Oliver Samuelson. They all volunteered to be a part of this. I've worked with all of them for years and I'll vouch for every one of them."

"I've heard something a lot like that before," Lincoln reminded her.

"It's different this time, Lincoln," she told him.

"And how do I know that?" he asked.

"You don't," she responded bluntly. "But I do. And you also don't have a choice in this. They are assets. They are well-trained. They know everything that I do. We do this my way or I walk. I'm not staging a half-assed rescue attempt with a bunch of amateurs."

"How many prison breaks do you have to go through, exactly, before you're no longer considered amateur?" Lincoln questioned bitingly.

"You followed your brother out a window, Lincoln," she reminded him. "You didn't exactly mastermind the whole thing, did you?"

She made a fair point, Sara thought privately, but Lincoln was scowling back at the blond anyhow. It appeared she'd hit a nerve. But Sara had considerably greater concerns than Lincoln's hurt feelings at the moment.

"What can you tell us about where Michael's being held?" she asked, gripping Linc's forearm and shooting him a warning glance to silence whatever retort he'd been about to shoot off at Jane.

"We should sit first," Jane said, stepping easily from her boat to theirs, two of her people following after her. "This might take a while."

Out of the corner of her eye, Sara saw Sofia gesture toward the long benches along the port side of the boat. Everyone followed the silent suggestion except for Lincoln, who elected to stand imposingly nearby with his feet spread in a wide stance and his bulky arms folded neatly in front of him.

"We didn't even know about the facility where Michael is being held until recently," Jane began, directing her information toward Sara's intensely focused gaze. "When The General was executed, there was a big change-up in the different factions of The Company. We believe it was a deadline for some of the former mid-level management types. One of our guys, a technician, was brought into this particular base with the changeover."

"What's the facility for?" LJ questioned, earning a respectful look from Jane. "It's obviously not entirely for housing Uncle Mike."

"We don't know everything that goes on there," Jane admitted. "Our inside man has access to some surveillance cameras and some of the buildings, but not all. We were incredibly lucky that he was assigned to the building he was or we wouldn't know of Michael's imprisonment. As far as we can tell, Michael's the only one being held captive. There's a medical facility, but we believe it's only purpose is to serve the residents of the island. Predominantly we think the island a highly secure data center and a training facility."

"Training facility?" Lincoln spoke up, looking intensely interested as his arms dropped to his side.

"No one's born an assassin, Linc," she told him.

"The Company doesn't exactly recruit your average housewife from Kentucky as an assassin though, does it?" Linc asked. "Ex-military, mercenaries... most of them have a pretty good idea how to kill a man already."

"You seriously depleted their personnel and resources when you took Scylla out of play," Jane reminded them. "And with different segments fighting for control, they're all looking to build a bigger, better base of loyal agents as fast as possible. That means training."

"So we're walking into a heavily guarded facility filled with... how many trained assassins?" LJ asked.

"Somewhere between 100 and 250 Company employees. At least half of them are guards or assassins," Jane informed him.

"What do you mean 'we?'" Linc questioned, eyes fixed on his son. "There's no 'we' here. You're not going."

"What? Yes I am," LJ insisted, rising to his feet to face off against his father. "It's Uncle Mike and he needs us. He's always been there for us. I'm gonna be there for him."

"You're not going, LJ. End of discussion," Linc told him decisively.

"I'm not sixteen anymore," LJ replied fiercely. "You can't just order me to sit at home and wait for a phone call that might not even ever come!"

"No one's staying at home," Sara interrupted, shifting the subject slightly to diffuse the tension a little. "It's not safe. Not with agents tailing us."

"He is not going along with us!" Lincoln shouted at Sara.

"I never said he was!" Sara shouted back, matching his volume but with an even tone that held no anger. "Mikey isn't either. _Obviously_. We'll need to divide up. You and I are going with Jane and her crew. We'll need LJ and Sofia to hide with and protect Mikey because the very _second_ they realize what we're trying we'll all have a giant bullseye on our backs."

"Mikey will need both of us, LJ," Sofia spoke up. "He has not been away from his mother for more than an afternoon. He is going to need familiar faces as well as protection. And he will be scared because there will be nothing else familiar for him. Not even his home country."

"We can't go back to Costa Rica?" LJ questioned, looking every bit the teenager he'd just vehemently denied being.

"No," Jane agreed. "You can't. We have resources in place that can help you all disappear, but that's a conversation for another time.

"From satellite imagery, we have a good idea of the layout of the island," Jane continued as one of her people, Samuelson, handed over the same laptop that had drawn all of them in so easily the night before.

But it wasn't the video feed of Michael that graced the screen this time. It was an overhead image of a pear-shaped island, sparsely treed with two large buildings and a smattering of much smaller outbuildings. One of the buildings, seemingly taller than the others - though that was hard to discern with any certitude given the angle - had a helicopter landing pad atop it and there was a dock not far away from the same building.

"We think he's being held here," Jane said, pointing toward the largest building. "In an interior room on the fifth floor."

"I'm hearing a lot of 'we think' and 'we believe' here, Jane," Linc said tensely, rubbing a hand over his scalp. "How certain are you really?"

"Intel is hard to come by and our man doesn't have access to more than the video feeds for that building. He can't go in and verify anything," Jane said. "Judging by the routes the guards take to man their stations outside of Michael's room, we have a very good best guess as to where he is, but I cannot guarantee you anything. _Anything_. And I'm not going to lie to you about that."

"How many guards are on his room?" Sara asked.

"Two at all times," Jane replied. "Both of whom follow him if he goes anywhere."

"Does he leave the room often?" Sara questioned.

"Most days he spends a few hours outside of the room but somewhere in the same building," Jane responded. "The timing is irregular and we don't know where he goes."

"Other than a few dozen hitmen living there, what kind of security does the island have?" Lincoln asked.

Jane sighed and looked toward one of her comrades. It wasn't reassuring.

"One of the biggest security features is location. A boat or a helicopter are the only options for getting close and either one is going to draw attention," she reminded them. "There are armed patrols around the clock. Entry into either of the main buildings requires thumbprint identification. There's surveillance in most - if not all - areas that's monitored constantly both by Company employees and facial recognition software."

"Is that all?" Linc asked sarcastically.

"No, probably not," Jane responded, unhesitatingly. "Our guy's just a technician and his intel is limited. We'll undoubtedly have a few surprises once we're in there."

Sara sighed heavily as she stared at the satellite image in front of her, willing her brain to work like Michael's just this once. He'd have ideas straight away, she knew. Plans and contingency plans and contingency plans for the contingency plans.

"We need Alex," she said suddenly and it seemed so obvious as soon as she voiced the thought that she was surprised she hadn't done so earlier.

"He and his wife are already on the way," Jane replied, to Sara's shock. "They'll land in the morning."

"How did you manage that?" Sara asked, her voice clearly stunned.

"I visited him and his wife three days ago and briefed them on the situation," Jane informed her. "He'd be useful simply because he's a former Company employee, but given his experience in breaking out of SONA and plotting breaking into Miami-Dade as well as interpreting Michael's original plans to break out of Fox River, I think his input will be invaluable."

Sara chewed on her lip a little as she debated bringing something up, eyes darting toward Jane's companions and back to the blonde.

"And you... you'll be all right about working with him? After everything?" Sara asked hesitantly.

"Because he was the one who killed Aldo, you mean?" Jane asked, not softening the truth even a little.

"Yes," Sara confirmed, reminding herself that Jane wasn't one to mince words. "That is what I mean."

"We've had words about that already," Jane bit out. "I'm not about to become friends with the man, but I am fully capable of divorcing my personal feelings from my professional obligations. He did what he had to do at the time. I can't say with any certainty that I'd have done differently in his shoes. That doesn't mean I intend to forgive his actions, but we are all aware of how vital a role he has in this mission. We won't have a problem working together."

"What about Sucre?" Lincoln asked abruptly.

"What about him?" Jane queried.

"Have you talked to him yet?" Lincoln asked, his voice a little patronizing.

"Why would we need him?" Jane puzzled.

"He'd want to be here," Sara insisted.

"Yes, but why would we _need_ him?" Jane repeated.

"You need people you trust to watch your back. We need people we trust to watch ours," Linc replied. "Sucre's in."

"Fine," Jane acquiesced, looking none-too-happy about it. "But Agents Mahone and Lang travel to Costa Rica a couple of times a year. Anyone watching wouldn't think twice about them coming to visit you. Fernando Sucre is of... a more limited means. He manages for Michael's memorial every year but if he hops a plane now, we risk tipping our hand and right now the only thing we have going for us is the element of surprise."

"We'll have to figure something else out," Sara acknowledged, suddenly feeling weary, the tension and weight of the conversation exhausting her.

"We should break for the day," Jane asserted, standing as she spoke. "Agent Mahone will want to be involved in planning the actual rescue and I think you've all gotten more than enough information to start mulling over. We'll meet again tomorrow. Same time. Same place. Oh... and do remember to act surprised when Agent Mahone shows up at your door? It's a spur of the moment visit and if you greet him like he's expected then the agents on you will know something is up."

Sara nodded absently, still staring at the satellite image and rubbing at her temples, the beginnings of a tension headache edging in on her. For not the first time, she marveled at how quickly the world could shift under her feet and everything she thought she knew could change.

"Jane?" she asked as the blonde stood and closed the laptop.

"Yes?" she responded curtly.

"Not that I'm not grateful, but... why did you come to us?" Sara questioned.

"What do you mean?" Jane asked, looking ever-so-slightly uneasy.

"You said it yourself," Sara followed up, standing and looking the other woman warily in the eye. "You don't need a bunch of amateurs watching your back and you don't include anyone you don't need in your plans."

"I'm not convinced Michael will go anywhere with me without seeing that you and Linc are safe," Jane replied.

Sara let the answer hang there as she studied the blonde, not entirely convinced that her response was the whole of her reasons.

"Okay," Sara allowed after a moment, far from convinced but not about to push things.

"We'll see you tomorrow," Jane said by way of goodbye, brusquely heading back to her own boat, entourage in tow.

"You don't trust Jane?" LJ questioned defensively as the other boat sped off, leaving them rocking slightly in its wake. "After all she's done for us?"

"I believe there's more to what's going on than what she's telling us," Sara levelled with him. "And I believe this is a hell of an undertaking for her group to rescue one man who isn't even one of their own."

"So what do you think her agenda is?" Sofia asked.

"I don't know," Sara admitted, glancing in the direction the other boat had gone. "That's what worries me."

"They're anti-Company and ready to help us get Michael back," Linc asserted. "That's all I need to know."

"Yeah," Sara agreed half-heartedly.

All she'd needed to know back in Fox River was that Lincoln was innocent, Michael had a plan to get him out and needed her to leave a door unlocked to save an innocent man. Of course, she hadn't known at the time that leaving that door open would mean Bagwell and Patoshek and Abruzzi would escape, too. Overlapping agendas, she'd found out the hard way, didn't mean identical ones.

"LJ, Sofia, would you mind checking on Mikey for me?" Sara asked, squinting at the sun in her eyes as she looked toward them. "I need to have a word with Linc before we head back."

From the thin smile on Sofia's face and the tiny nod she offered up, Sara was pretty sure her friend knew precisely what this conversation was going to be about, but LJ looked fairly clueless. It was amazing, honestly, how grown up and how young that boy seemed at the same time.

Sofia linked her arm through LJ's and led her quasi-step-son down the stairs to the cabin where Sara could faintly hear Mikey chattering away with his favorite television show.

"Sara," Linc rumbled.

"You didn't have a right to try and keep this from me," she interrupted, turning on him. "God, why would you even _do_ that? It's Michael, Lincoln. How in the world could you possibly think keeping it from me was a good idea?"

"Because it was," he maintained, standing his ground literally and figuratively.

She grit her teeth and shook her head at him in disbelief, eyes blazing with ire and indignation.

"This is so damn dangerous, Sara. What if you die trying to save him? What if we both do? Then what?" Lincoln asked. "What happens to Mikey then?"

"We worked out years ago that if anything happened to me that you and Sofia would take care of Mikey," Sara reminded him.

"He needs his mother, Sara," Lincoln insisted.

"He needs both his parents," Sara said challengingly. "And I intend to see he has that."

"You don't get it, do you?" Lincoln snapped. "This isn't a sure thing. It's not even close and here you are talking about it like we're gonna just waltz in there, grab Michael and sail off into the sunset. It doesn't work like that."

"I know it's more complicated than-"

"There is nothing, _nothing_ more horrible than hope," Linc roared at her. "Every goddamn time a petition got denied or evidence turned out to be shit it was like I'd gotten a damn death sentence all over again. I don't wanna sit there and watch you crumble to bits another time if we can't get him back or he dies for real this time."

She stumbled back half a step and gulped heavily at his words. She wished she couldn't see the truth behind his words but, _God_ , they were staring her right in the face and she couldn't deny them. But it didn't make him right and he needed to know that.

"And if you'd gone off with Jane on your own and never come back? What then? What if I'd had to live with wondering for the rest of my life what would have happened if I'd gone with you? The only thing worse than hope is regret, Linc," she told him. "I refuse to live my life afraid of the consequences of doing what's right."

"You're the most goddamn stubborn woman I've ever met in my entire life," he muttered, shaking his head.

"Mmm, no," Sara smiled. "Sofia gets that title. I'd have let you have the man-cave."

Linc laughed, a full-throated sound that washed over them with a sense of normalcy. It felt good and familiar and right and Sara was grateful for it as he casually threw an arm around her shoulder and squeezed it briefly before letting her go.

"Maybe I should live with you and Michael instead," he joked as he headed toward the helm, readying the boat for it's journey back to shore.

"I'm not doing your laundry!" Sara informed him, grinning winningly as she settled a hand on the cabin door.

"Damn," he mock-grimaced. "That's a deal-breaker."

It suddenly struck Sara that leaving Costa Rica would be easier than she'd thought. It held plenty of memories, mostly happy. But home was her family. It was Michael and Mikey and Lincoln and Sofia and LJ. And having them all together, happy and healthy and safe was the only thing that mattered.

"You ready to get going?" Linc asked as he turned the motor back on, oblivious to her thoughts.

A surge of confidence raced through her. This was happening. They could do this. They could set things right.

"Absolutely," she replied


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Sara sat, back ramrod straight, eyes intently focused on Jane as the other woman spoke. The determination in her gaze, the sheer focus, was remarkable, but not surprising. For not the first time, Alex reflected that he could see precisely what it was about the former prison doctor that had rattled Michael Scofield's master plans. For all their differences, his wife and Michael's wife had a hell of a lot in common.

Felicia's hand gripped his tightly, thumb grazing across his knuckles. She hadn't even hesitated when Jane had shown up at their door and explained the situation.

"When do we leave?" she'd asked.

She'd never known Michael. Never even _met_ him. But she wasn't the type to sit back and say it wasn't her problem. Not when she could do something to right a wrong. She was strong and smart, a woman of action, and he was so damn lucky to have her in his life.

"What about the water supply?" he found himself asking, his brain working on several levels as he mulled the situation and his present company.

"Desalinization facilities on the island," Jane replied succinctly. "We don't know what kind of security it has, which makes it a hell of a risk to attempt tampering with. And it's Michael's water source, too."

"Ventilation system?" Sara chimed in as Linc eyed her sharply.

"Likely unguarded but also almost certainly too narrow to use as a crawlspace," Jane responded. "Certainly the vent in Michael's room is too small for a person to fit through, but it's something to keep in mind if something goes wrong in the corridors. There would be wider access points there."

"I don't suppose we have blueprints?" Alex asked, not the least bit hopeful.

"We have some rough sketches of the facility and the satellite image, but I'm pretty sure we don't have time for you to tattoo them to yourself," Jane retorted hotly.

"What kind of support can we expect from your group other than you and your four associates?" Felicia spoke up, pulling Jane's attention away from Alex.

"There's no backup team, if that's what you're asking," Jane told her.

"It was, in fact, what I was asking," she replied evenly.

"This isn't exactly a sanctioned mission," Jane sighed. "It's not _unsanctioned_ either, really. I was given the go-ahead but little resources. I have my team, some cash and a few supplies, but no one will be coming after us if we fail."

"Well that's... less than reassuring," Alex responded, eyebrows quirking a little as he spoke.

"In case you hadn't noticed, Agent Mahone, I'm not exactly the reassuring type," Jane deadpanned.

"That actually hadn't escaped my notice," he bit back before shifting the subject. "As challenging as getting onto the island, getting Michael and getting away will be, I think the greater challenge will be losing the Company tails on you already without alerting them of what's going on. Surprise is our biggest advantage. We can't afford to lose that."

"I agree," Jane said steadily.

"So how do we do it?" Linc asked, obviously recognizing the slow grin that spread across Alex's face. "What's your brilliant plan this time? How do we get away from them?"

"By going where they can't go," Alex responded.

"And where's that?" Jane asked with interest.

"Police custody," Alex smiled broadly.

"Are you _out_ of your _mind_?" Sara asked sharply. "I'm not going back to prison."

"The Company has a long history of agents hidden in law enforcement," Jane reminded him.

"You said it yourself, Jane," he reminded her. "The Company is depleted. Spread thin. And no one is suggesting that anyone go back to jail."

"Then what exactly are you suggesting?" Sara asked briskly.

"They need to believe we are. We set up our 'arrest' and make sure the media gets wind of it. There will be widespread coverage of it and while The Company is focused on getting inside the jail to get to us, we won't have ever been there in the first place," Alex pronounced proudly.

"And how, exactly, do you plan to fake our arrest?" Linc asked doubtfully.

"We... um... we'll have to call in a few favors," he winced a little.

"We have favors to call in?" Sara laughed shortly before looking wholly uncomfortable as everyone's eyes settled on her.

"Sara..." Alex started.

"No," she said darkly, realization flickering her eyes.

"You know he'll do it for you," Alex reminded her. "You know he _can_ do it."

"I'm not calling him," Sara said with resounding certainty.

"If you've got another idea, I'm all ears," Alex shot back.

"I... _God damn it_ , Alex. I _do not_ want Paul Kellerman even knowing Michael is alive!" Sara insisted.

"So don't tell him," Alex shrugged. "Honestly, the less he knows the better."

"You are _seriously_ overestimating my influence over him," Sara said pointedly.

"I'm really not," Alex shot back knowingly in a tone that made Sara squirm a little uncomfortably.

He watched, ever the student of human behavior, as she sighed heavily and rolled her neck, eyes shut against the world. There were few things, he felt certain, that she wanted less than to renew any kind of communication with Paul Kellerman. But then there was nothing she wanted more than to get Michael back. Her brow furrowed and tightened as she ran a hand through her long auburn hair and he could practically watch as the scales tipped in her mind, weighing her choices. He knew the very second she came to the conclusion he'd always known she'd reach.

"Well I guess we'll see about that, won't we," Sara said after a beat, nervousness evident in her voice as she grasped the satellite phone in Jane's outstretched hand.

"Jane, do you have surveillance gear?" Alex asked.

"Of course," she responded, as if his question was utterly ridiculous.

"I want to listen in when she calls," Alex followed up.

"Why?" Sara asked.

"He's a slippery bastard," Alex admitted. "And he rarely does anything without an agenda. Though, I have to say, bringing you and your conspirators in should assure his reelection, but I still want to see if he says anything that might indicate he's double-crossing us."

"You're not inspiring a lot of faith in this plan, Alex," Sara told him. "If our whole scenario depends on Paul Kellerman's honesty, I think we're in a lot of trouble."

"The one thing you can count on with Kellerman? The only thing?" Alex said as he put on a headset and Jane fiddled with some equipment. "Is for him to do what's in his own best interests. We just have to make sure it's in line with our own best interests."

"What if he says no?" Sara asked worriedly. "Or worse, what if he says yes and then really arrests us?"

"If he says no, we come up with a plan b. If he says yes and really has us arrested... well, we'll have to come up with a plan for that, too," Alex shrugged.

"I hate this plan," Sara pronounced, but she picked up the phone and started dialing anyhow. "Start thinking of 'plan b' because we're going to need it."

Alex put the headset on as Sara finished dialing a number that she had - for some reason - apparently committed to memory. For all her protests about her influence over Kellerman, Alex had to wonder if maybe she was fully aware of just how much sway she had with him. She fidgeted a little with her hands as the phone rang in a way that reminded Alex sharply of Michael. As she did so, she glanced nervously in his direction and he decided in that moment that - yes - Congressman Kellerman had been Sara Scofield's own 'plan b' for a very, very long time.

_Smart girl_ , he thought to himself.

"Congressman Kellerman's office," greeted a cheery voice on the other end of the line.

"Hello, this is the Congressman's doctor. I need to speak with him and - uh - iron out some information in his medical file," Sara said, shooting Linc a look as he snickered.

"I'll see if he's available. Just a moment Doctor," the chipper voice replied.

The line clicked as she was put on hold and Sara stood up and paced across the deck of the boat as she waited. As it turned out, she didn't have to wait long. Less than a minute later, the line clicked again.

"Hello Sara," Paul Kellerman's voice greeted her.

If a voice could smirk, his would be. No one telegraphed their amusement and self-satisfaction so clearly as Kellerman.

"Paul," she acknowledged.

"I have to say, I'm a little surprised to be hearing from you. What _would_ my constituents think?" he baited.

"Well considering they elected a self-confessed murderer, I can't say I really trust their judgement," she shot back.

He chuckled with obvious pleasure at the banter as Sara wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered a little.

"I need a favor, Paul," Sara sighed and his laughter stopped abruptly. "And you're frankly the only person who can help me with this."

"I'm listening," he said after a beat, clearly interested.

"I need to fake my own arrest," she said.

"And _why_ would you want to do that?" he asked.

Alex could practically hear the other man's brain ticking away possibilities, outlining the situation as best he could.

"Why do you think?" Sara countered, glancing down at a paper Jane had just scrawled something on and handed to her as she spoke.

"Who's tailing you?" he asked.

"Who isn't?" she laughed sharply.

"Hmm," he drawled. "You _have_ mastered the art of answering a question with a question haven't you?"

"Yeah, well, I learned the hard way not to overshare information," she acknowledged. "Otherwise I might end up eating pie in my apartment with someone trying to kill me, right?"

From the look on her face, Alex was pretty sure she'd expected a laugh from Paul at that, but she didn't get one. Instead the man on the other end of the line sucked in a breath sharply but otherwise stayed silent.

"Paul?" she asked nervously after a few seconds.

"You must really be in a fix," he said, his voice ringing with forced lightness but sounding a little bitter. "You're certainly trying very hard here."

"Like I said," she responded. "You're the only person I can turn to on this."

"While that does have its appeal, this isn't exactly a small thing you're proposing. Arresting you for real would be simple, but faking it for everyone to see - which, let's not kid ourselves here - is your entire agenda, that's quite the task. Why should I do this for you, Sara?" he asked. "I mean, aside from you owing me one, what's in it for me?"

"It would sew up your re-election right now," she pointed out, using Alex's trump card.

He was quiet again for a couple of seconds and Alex winced as he realized his misstep.

"Tell me, Sara. Is Alex Mahone listening in right now or did he just help you plot out this whole conversation?" he asked finally.

Alex grimaced and fought against the urge to throw his headset in frustration. Fucking Kellerman.

"Paul..." Sara stumbled.

"Re-election, Sara? That's what you come to me with? That's not how your mind works. I know you better than that," he told her. "We ate pie together once, remember?"

"I need your help, Paul," she implored, sounding every bit as desperate as she really was.

"And that, Sara, is why I will help you," he told her.

"You will?" she breathed, sounding both surprised and relieved.

"Sara... I'm a public servant now, in case you hadn't heard. Helping people is what I do," he told her and she snorted in response. "Now get Mahone off the line so we can talk."

Alex winced ruefully as he removed the headset. If they were going to have Kellerman's help, it was going to be on the Congressman's own terms. Whether he'd wanted to recognize that at the outset or not, it had always going to be that way.

"Well? What did he say?" Linc asked in an urgent but somewhat muted tone, eyes darting from Alex to Sara who was pacing just out of earshot.

"He says he'll help us," Alex replied, his face showing none of the sense of relief or accomplishment that his statement ought to have implied.

"And what will he really do?" Felicia asked, her hand gripping his gently, drawing his attention to her keenly observant stare.

"Of that," he admitted, "I have no idea.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points to anyone who recognizes the names of the two Company agents tailing Sara and Linc. Double points to anyone who recognizes the two unnamed law enforcement professionals who have a cameo here. Seriously, kudos if you suss it out. Enjoy! ;-)

Chapter Four

The next two days simultaneously slowed to a crawl and sped by with horrifying swiftness. There was an endless string of details to plot out. For every conceivable thing that could go wrong - and there were a lot of them - they needed a backup plan. But pantomiming a normal life for the Company goons watching them and escaping on the boat to frantically plan was quickly wearing Sara thin. She wanted Michael back. _Now_. Three days ago. Four years and several months ago. And sitting around planning was making her feel like she might crawl out of her own skin with frustration and impatience.

She'd gained a whole new level of respect for Michael's plan to break his brother out of Fox River. She couldn't imagine doing this for three weeks, let alone three years.

When the day they were leaving finally arrived and they all - minus Jane and her team - arrived at the airport, Sara actually had to check her boarding pass to remember where it was they were supposedly heading. The destination on the ticket didn't matter; the layover in Dallas did. In Dallas, Kellerman's men would be waiting to take them into custody. At least, she hoped to God they would be. Otherwise they'd all end up in... well, Nova Scotia, if her boarding pass was to be believed.

"Woah! Look at that!" Mikey exclaimed, letting go of his mother's hand to rush up to the glass and press his nose against it as a 747 roared down the runway. "That plane is going up, up and away, mama!"

Half of her wanted to crouch next to her little boy and hold him tightly, grasping onto the moment and her son never to let go. The other half of her wanted to look away, insulate herself from him for the sake of what had to be done. It was Lincoln's heavy hand squeezing her shoulder and his level gaze that reminded her neither of those wants was an option. Not now.

"It's pretty cool, huh buddy?" she asked in what she hoped was a convincingly light tone, bending down to his level.

Mikey hadn't seemed to pick up on anything being wrong, but she had no idea if Company agents were still tailing them. It was likely, she thought, fighting the urge to scan the terminal for dark sunglasses and low-dipped caps.

"We'll be going on one of those and going up, up and away ourselves pretty soon," she told him.

"It's a very long ways to fall," he told her solemnly, looking a little concerned.

"You won't fall, Mikey," she told him, a genuine smile inching its way onto her face. "Planes are built for this."

"Oh..." he said, his little face screwing into a look of intense concentration that she knew well. "How do they work?"

"Um... they..." she stumbled a little. "Aerodynamics and... physics."

It was simultaneously the most rudimentary and thorough answer she could provide. How the hell should she know how planes worked? They just did. She wondered, however, ever-so-briefly, how Michael would have fielded that question. How he _would_ field that question.

"You don't know, do you mommy?" Mikey asked, his hand resting on her shoulder just as Linc's had moments before.

"I can tell you how your endocrine system works!" she countered. "And exactly what happens when you sneeze."

Mikey just shook his head at her.

"Momma, we'll look it up later together, okay? Then we'll both know," he said.

She bit her lips to keep from laughing even as a monotone voice announced their boarding over the loudspeaker.

"Listen, Mikey," she said seriously, brushing his hair back from his brow and trying to commit his little face to memory. "Sometimes there's security on planes and at airports. It's their job to keep us safe. So sometimes they have to search us and even divide us up for a little bit. But you don't have to be scared, okay? It happens all the time. Everything will be okay."

"Like before when we had to take our shoes off and walk through the thingy?" he asked warily.

"Sort of," she agreed. "Sometimes they have to check you out even more carefully. They might even want to talk to mommy alone. But that'll be okay because it happens all the time and we won't be apart for long, okay?"

"Okay..." he said sounding uncertain.

She hated keeping him in the dark on this. He was bound to be terrified when they were marched off in handcuffs, but there was little she could do about it. Warning him of what was to come would only scare him more and had the added danger of the potential for him to slip and say something oh-so-innocently to the flight attendant, the person next to them, _anyone_. It was just too big a risk.

"Good boy," she told him, ruffling the hair she'd just smoothed and grasping his small hand in hers as they followed Linc and Sofia and LJ onto the waiting plane, Alex and Felicia close on their heels.

Mikey took the window seat and stared in awe as they took off and the ground shrank away beneath them. Sara made all the appropriate noises in return, smiling and nodding and agreeing at her little boy, but she registered barely anything he was saying. This was really happening. _Now._ And the anxiety coursing through her veins made her wish like hell she could ask a flight attendant for every miniature-sized bottle of bourbon they had on the damn plane. It had been a long, long time since she'd wanted a drink (or twelve) as badly as she did right now.

"You good, Doc?" Lincoln's heavy voice rumbled from across the aisle.

She nodded hard, auburn hair masking her face and sweaty palms rubbing against the knees of her jeans. Losing it wasn't an option right now.

An unopened bottle of water appeared on her tray table and her eyes darted across the thin walkway to catch Linc's gaze.

"Thanks," she mumbled, unscrewing the cap and gulping back half the miniature bottle in one go. "Not exactly the drink I was craving, but..."

"Yeah," Linc replied, unsurprised. "I got that. Not exactly like you can call your sponsor at the moment though, so..."

She almost laughed at that, envisioning such a call. _I really want a drink right now because I just found out that my dead husband is really alive and being held captive by the remnants of a shady international organization that secretly rules the world._ Yeah... that'd go over _real_ well.

"I'm good, Linc," she reassured him, taking a deep breath and downing the rest of the water. "I'll be fine."

And it was true, she realized all the sudden. She wouldn't be so terrified if she didn't have so much to lose and so much to gain. She had to focus, keep it together. Michael needed her. Her son needed her. And - damn it - she deserved to have things turn out in her favor for a change.

"Good," he replied gruffly, turning his half-hearted attention back to last month's in-flight magazine.

"Momma? How much longer?" Mikey asked, tugging on Sara's sleeve.

"We have to change planes in about an hour and a half," she told him, checking her watch. "Do you want a coloring book or..."

"Ladies and gentlemen," a voice over the intercom interrupted, startling her as it cut her off. "This is your captain speaking. We've had an indicator light go on for our fuel tank. There is no immediate danger, but policy requires that we stop at the closest major airport to have it check out and ensure all of our passengers' safety. Unfortunately, folks, that means we'll be setting down in Albuquerque just as soon as we have clearance from the tower. I know a lot of you have connecting flights and we thank you for your..."

His voice dulled into the background with a low hum of commentary from the plane's passengers. Sara was silent, though. Hands shaking and moist as she caught Alex's eye, looking back from the row in front of them.

"Do you think..." Lincoln started.

"Either that or we'll miss them in Dallas," Alex acknowledged.

"Plan B?" Sara asked, her voice betraying her anxiety a little.

"Let's see how this pans out," Felicia counseled, catching her husband's eye and engaging in some sort of silent conversation.

"What'd that man say, momma?" Mikey asked, big eyes staring up at her.

"Um, the plane has to stop for gas," she simplified. "Like mommy does for the car."

"Oh..." Mikey replied, unconcerned and returning his attention to the fast approaching ground.

Touchdown was a little jarring and Sara wasn't the only one aboard gripping her arm rests with whitened knuckles. Later, she'd wonder exactly how she'd managed to go through the motions of disembarking with relative calm. Her heart pounded somewhere in her throat and the din of the passengers sounded like a foreign language to her ears. But she grabbed her carry-on bag and Mikey's hand and they walked down the aisle with LJ, Felicia and Alex in front of them and Lincoln and Sofia behind.

"Dad," LJ said, panic evident in his voice as soon as they stepped off the gangplank.

Sara's view was blocked by LJ's increasingly bulky form, but she knew the tone well enough to know what he'd seen. One way or another, this was happening. Here, not Dallas. And their plan was already being thrown off-course.

"I love you, Mikey," she smiled down at her son, leaning down to kiss the crown of his head in a lingering way. "Don't ever forget that. No matter what."

"I know, momma. Love you too," he replied smiling, completely unaware of everything about to happen.

"Doctor Sara Tancredi," a chillingly familiar voice rang out as several heavily-armed officers surrounded them and the other passengers scattered. "You're under arrest for … well, just about everything I can think of, actually."

"Actually, I'm no longer a doctor or a Tancredi, _Congressman_ ," she corrected, pulling Mikey flush behind her in as protected a position as she could possibly muster, given the circumstances.

"Fair enough, Sara," he replied, smiling like it hurt his face to do so as he closed the space between them. "Then it's Mrs. Scofield who's under arrest. That's fitting, really. Since Scofield's the reason you've gotten yourself into so much trouble. But, any name you want to go by, you're still going to jail... along with all of your conspirators. Mr and Mrs. Mahone, both Mr. Burrowses and... who are you, exactly?"

His eyes had settled on Sofia with genuine confusion and it was oddly gratifying to find that after all this time, Kellerman was a bit out of the loop.

"She's my nanny," Sara blurted out, cutting off whatever Sofia had been about to say. "And you've got nothing to arrest her on, so I'd like to leave my son in her custody for the time being."

Mikey seemed to draw Paul's attention for the first time and the Congressman's smile twitched a little as he took in the wide, sea-colored eyes and dark hair.

"My, my... you _do_ look like your daddy, don't you?" he asked rhetorically, eyeing the child with unnerving focus.

"Leave him out of this," Linc growled.

"Down boy," Kellerman smirked, giving Lincoln a sideways glance.

"Linc..." Sara cautioned as her brother-in-law's frame tensed up like a coiled spring, her single word garnering his attention and taking some of the edge off of his ire.

"You and your... _nanny_ will both need to sign some papers in order to release the minor to her custody. So, for now, you'll all need to come with us," Kellerman informed Sara, turning back to face her fully.

"Fine," Sara agreed, ushering Mikey to Sofia's side and hoping like hell that this was all going to work out according to plan in spite of the venue change.

Kellerman wasn't the type to tip his hand either way. At this point - even though she arguably knew him the best out of their group - she couldn't even hazard a guess to what the former Company agent's agenda was. All she did know was that he was enjoying this entirely too much.

"I'm going to need you to put your hands behind your back," he ordered.

"Is that really necessary?" Sara asked, brow furrowed as she thought of her three-year-old watching his entire family walk off in handcuffs with guns trained on them.

"You've played a part in a breakout from not one but _two_ maximum security prisons... what do you think?" he smirked.

"I'm surprised you came yourself," she baited, hoping like hell for some clue as to what her sometimes-adversary was really up to as he roughly jerked her arms in place and secured the handcuffs around her wrists. "Surely you have people you could have sent to do this for you, these days."

"And miss this, Sara?" he asked, leaning in far too closely to her ear for her comfort-level. "Not for the world."

"New Mexico, Paul?" she questioned.

"I was feeling nostalgic," he offered up, earning a solid glare back in return.

"Tugging on her pigtails won't make her like you back, Kellerman," Lincoln sneered from a couple feet away, hands bound behind his back and a police officer on either side of him.

"Just doing my duty, Burrows," Kellerman answered tightly. "Helping people is what I do. I like being the guy people know they can turn to... to get things done."

The sense of relief at the familiarity of his words - all of them snippets of their conversation just days ago when she'd called him - washed through Sara in a rush, overwhelming her already strained nerves. A few desperate sobs of relief and not even a full minute later, she took a steadying breath and let her auburn tresses drape to hide her face as best she could.

As they slowly began to make their way through the terminal, progressing past the cordoned off areas the police alone had access to, the bright lights of the media's cameras flashed with blinding brilliance. She glanced up toward them only briefly, to supply proof-positive of her identity for those that needed to see it, before gluing her gaze back at her own feet, a smile playing at the edges of her mouth.

Their plan was underway. And so far? It was working.

The media presence had far surpassed Sara's expectations if the cluster of stylish high heels and sensible business flats barely visible beneath the curtain of her hair was any indication. Some of them were calling her name, trying to earn her attention as flush bulbs washed everything out. Others were narrating the scene - narrating her life, or their version of it - into the steady glare of the television cameras, with her, no doubt, as the backdrop.

"... _at one point best known for her charity work and her father's political career, Dr. Tancredi kept her addictions quiet as she..."_

" _...a near-fatal overdose in a failed suicide attempt..."_

" _...engaged in an illicit, sexual relationship with one of her patients, inmate Michael Scofield of the now infamous Fox River Eight..."_

" _...wanted in connection with the cold-blooded murder of..."_

Their voices trailed after her as she walked, Kellerman's grip firmly around her upper arm. She would have been lying if she'd said that a part of her didn't want to turn to those cameras and set the record straight. But the truth and her reputation had been two of the first casualties of this entire thing and she knew that both were too far gone to be resurrected. Besides, there were more important things that demanded her attention now.

Honestly, she was a little surprised that Kellerman didn't stop for the cameras, parade her in front of them like a prized catch that was bound to bolster his popularity immensely. But he didn't, instead leading her toward a heavy-looking metal door labelled "Security." She'd never been claustrophobic in a crowd, but the sense of relief she felt as the voices of the media dulled with distance was tremendous.

"Tweedledumb and Tweedledumber were three rows behind you," Kellerman said as soon as the door shut and the flashbulbs of the media disappeared.

He tossed a couple of photos of the company agents down onto the long metal table in the middle of the room and Sara craned her neck to take a look at the men who had been tailing them for _years_. They seemed vaguely familiar, but were generally unremarkable looking men. That would be useful, she supposed, in their line of work.

"Rosen and Sterns," Kellerman elaborated. "Not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, but definitely a threat."

"You know them?" Sara asked, looking at Kellerman with interest.

"We've... crossed paths before," he explained vaguely.

"Where are they now?" Lincoln asked, brow furrowed as he stared down the pictures.

"Rosen is trying to pass himself off as part of the press corp to get information while Sterns is trying to impersonate someone from Homeland Security to get access to you," Kellerman replied, directing his answer to Sara rather than Lincoln as he spoke. "We've got eyes on them both. I can keep them barking up the wrong trees and chasing their tails for a while."

"Thank you," Sara said genuinely and the tiniest, most authentic smile she'd ever seen inched across Kellerman's lips.

"Marshals, lets get those handcuffs off, shall we?" he said finally, clearing his throat a bit before moving to unrestrain Sara.

His hands stuttered against the metal around her wrists and she could hear his breath catch a little before he freed her. She mumbled her thanks and rubbed her newly-released wrists as if to reaffirm that they were no longer cuffed behind her. Kellerman's eyes didn't once leave her hands as she did so and she knew instantly why.

"You never seemed the tattoo type to me, Sara. Some of your husband's ink rub off on you?" he asked, barbs in his voice.

She laughed sharply and stared down at the ever-present, simple outline of a paper crane adorning the inside of her left wrist.

"Clearly you don't know me as well as you think you do, Paul," she chastised lightly.

"I really do," he countered, his tone brokering no room for debate.

" _Man_ , you just have all the charm of a used car salesman, don't you?" the female US Marshal that had accompanied them into the room asked, directing her voice toward Kellerman. "Actually, that might be insulting to used car salesmen."

"Ix-nay on the insults-ay," her partner suggested, talking out of the side of his mouth while continuing to stare straight ahead at the congressman.

"Pig latin? Seriously?" she asked, shaking her head at him in bewilderment.

"You'd prefer real Latin?" he asked, his gaze shifting toward her. "Quieti iniurias."

" _God_ , you're a nerd," she replied, looking a little flabbergasted. "How is it that I'm perpetually astounded by exactly how big a nerd you are? Do you build Star Trek models in your spare time?"

"Pfft, of course not," he replied, looking a little insulted. "They're Star Wars."

"These... _lovely_ US Marshals will be providing your cover," Kellerman informed the group as Mikey left Sofia's side to grab his mother's hand.

"What do you have planned?" Alex asked, speaking up for the first time since the plane ride.

"I presume you need to be in Dallas, so I'll get you all to Dallas," Kellerman replied. "While we're flying out on a private plane, our fine public servants here will be driving two prisoner transport vans that - hopefully - everyone will assume you are in. When they are asked about you by the media, their reply will be 'The U.S. Marshal Service does not comment about those in their custody or persons in the witness protection program.'"

"Which will send the media into a frenzy assuming we're all in witness protection and send the Company agents on a wild goose chase," Sara followed up.

"That's the plan," Kellerman confirmed.

"It's a good plan," Alex admitted, looking a little surprised.

"No need to be so shocked, Agent Mahone. Once upon a time, I did this sort of thing with pretty great regularity," Kellerman reminded them.

"Yeah... we remember," LJ replied darkly, looking like he wanted to tear the congressman's throat out in spite of the fact that he was currently helping them.

All-in-all, Sara couldn't blame him all for that. She still remembered, with startling clarity, exactly how satisfying it felt to wrap a cord around his neck and _pull_. And, for all his sins against her, Kellerman's wrongs against LJ were decidedly worse.

She grabbed her nephew's hand, her grip both restraining and reassuring, and caught his eye. They'd always had an unspoken language all their own. Ever since Panama, where the threat of death and torture lingered in every shadow.

It wasn't okay, her eyes told him sadly, but there also wasn't a way to make it okay. Four years ago, Kellerman had killed LJ's mother in cold blood right in front of him. And today? Today he was a US Congressman. Respected. Admired. Forgiven by the court of public opinion, if not by his victims. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right. But there wasn't a damn thing they could do about that, especially when they needed his help so badly once again.

"When does the plane leave?" Sofia asked and it was only when she spoke that Sara realized the other woman had a steadying hand on LJ's elbow.

"Whenever we want," Kellerman replied, his attention drawn to the slight woman. "Nanny? Really?"

"She's with me," Lincoln replied for her, stepping between his girlfriend and Kellerman.

"Of course she is," Kellerman replied dryly, in a way that Sara felt certain was meant to be wholly unflattering to the both of them.

"Let's get going," Sara said just as Linc opened his mouth to say something that couldn't possibly be to their benefit. "Jane's going to go to Plan B if we're not there soon."

"Jane?" Kellerman asked sharply, his eyes unnervingly piercing and wholly focused on Sara.

"An old contact of Aldo's," Sara confirmed, regretting her slip-of-the-tongue instantly. "She's helping us."

Kellerman laughed a little and shook his head with a rueful smile, but said nothing for a long minute, eyes seemingly searching for answers to some unspoken question in the cheap wallpaper covering the room.

"Of _course_ she is," he replied finally, a deadened quality taking over his eyes.

"What does _that_ mea-"

"Let's go," he interrupted, his tone all business. "Don't want to keep _Jane_ waiting, now do we?"

Sara was a little taken aback by the abrupt shift in his demeanor, but followed his clipped pace out the service door and through a deserted hall, the footsteps of her family following close behind her.

It was nerve-wracking, even with things going so well - or, perhaps, because they _were_ going so well - to follow Paul Kellerman through the maze of the airport's silent service corridors. How secure was it really? How did he know for absolute certain that no one would be using these halls? She didn't ask though, either because she was nervous of his answer or unsure if she'd believe it. Instead she hurried along as fast as her long legs would let her, hoisting her son up into her arms to aid in quickening their pace.

"Here," Kellerman said briskly, pulling something from his pocket and holding it out to Sara as they reached the exit door to the tarmac.

"A hat?" she questioned even as she shifted her son on her hip and pulled it atop her head, tucking her hair up in it as best she could.

"Unlikely we'll need any kind of a disguise boarding the plane but better to err on the side of caution," Kellerman told her.

"Where's mine?" Linc asked.

Kellerman gave a disbelieving look in Lincoln's direction and cocked his head to the side a little.

"You don't get one," he said finally.

"Why not? I'm recognizable too," Linc protested.

"Everyone in America just saw Sara hauled off in handcuffs on CNN," Kellerman reminded him. "She's got pretty distinctive hair, in case you hadn't noticed. We can hide that with a hat. You, however, have no hair to hide and a neck like a two-by-four so unless you want us to scrounge up a scarf for you, you're just going to have to hurry along with no disguise and cross your fingers."

Linc muttered something beneath his breath that Sara couldn't make out, but did as he'd been instructed without any further complaint. The eight of them breezed through the door, following Kellerman to a private plane not far away. To Sara's great relief, there was no one in sight other than two men guarding the plane who nodded solidly in Kellerman's direction as they boarded.

"How many people, exactly, know about this plan of yours?" Alex asked as they each claimed seats.

"The two guards outside, three U.S. Marshals, the Director of Homeland Security and the head of the U.S. Marshal Service," he answered. "None of whom are going to mess this up. You have my word on that."

"Yeah, because your _word_ has proven so reliable," Lincoln countered as they started taxiing down the runway.

"I don't know," Kellerman replied, looking a little affronted but not at all surprised. "I think I've pulled through pretty well so far."

"You have, Paul," Sara replied, holding her son tightly on her lap as she stared out the window.

It was an awkward trip, few of them speaking during the hour and a half long flight. That was probably for the best, Sara decided. Kellerman, Linc and LJ in an enclosed space was a potential recipe for disaster. It wasn't until the plane had landed and they began to disembark that Kellerman's voice jarred Sara from her tumultuous thoughts.

"Sara," he said as she hoisted her sleeping little boy into her arms.

"Hm?" she questioned, turning toward him.

"I hope you find him," Kellerman said, sincerity etched into every aspect of his face.

"What?" Sara asked, scarcely daring to breathe.

"Give me a little credit, Sara," he said. "You're not running from someone; You're running _to_ someone. I've done this long enough to know the difference."

"Paul..." she said, voice trailing off a little as she recognized simultaneously that they were alone on the plane at this point and she didn't have any clue how to respond to that.

"You deserve a happy ending, Sara," he told her, smiling a little sadly.

"I'm not after a happy ending. Endings are never happy," she responded, shifting so her son's head rest on her shoulder. "I'm after a happy middle."

"Fair enough," he agreed.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

It might have been Texas and sunny, but it was also January and until he stepped off the plane Linc didn't really consider that it might be cold. And it was. Very. Days of planning every detail of this trip and no one had thought to check the weather forecast? Linc grimaced, blinking in the blinding sunshine as he wondered what the hell else they'd failed to consider.

"Hey, there's Natalie!" LJ said brightly, nodding his head toward a petite twenty-something brunette standing in an open doorway.

"Natalie?" Lincoln asked concerned. "Who the hell is Natalie?"

"Natalie Stark?" LJ replied like it was completely obvious. "One of Jane's people?"

"So, she's Natalie, huh?" Linc asked, voice ringing with amusement. "It's not 'Hey there's one of Jane's people' or 'Look, there's that chick who stood on the boat and didn't say a word.' It's 'Hey, there's _Natalie?_ '"

"Yeah, whatever," LJ grinned, looking thoroughly unabashed as he hurried toward the woman in question.

"He is _your_ son," Sofia pointed out, grinning up at Lincoln with great amusement. "Are you really surprised?"

Linc just shook his head in response, watching as his twenty-year-old son leaned against the doorframe and tried unsuccessfully to engage _Natalie_ in some kind of conversation. It figured, honestly. It really did.

"Move it, Sara," Linc called back through the open door to the plane, barely able to see her lingering behind talking to Kellerman. "We're too exposed out here."

She hurried off the plane moments later, hat pulled low and sunglasses in place with that huge bag of hers slung over one shoulder. If it hadn't been for Mikey asleep on her hip it could have damn well been four years prior and, for not the first time, Lincoln found himself wondering if they'd ever really, truly escape what their lives had become.

"Let's move," Kellerman half-suggested, half-instructed, following in Sara's wake and passing Lincoln with barely a glance.

"I hate that guy," Linc grumbled beneath his breath.

"Know what I don't get?" Alex asked, matching Lincoln's pace as they all made their way toward the open door. "Who the hell voted for him?"

Linc grinned a little back at Alex because... yeah. Good question. But he said nothing as they group reached the open door and the relative safety of the quiet room beyond it. He breezed past Kellerman, who appeared to be surveying the tarmac, and found Jane and her other three team members already populating the room.

"All clear," Natalie said as she and Kellerman finally entered the room and the door shut behind them.

"We're off on our timeline," Jane said in place of a greeting.

"You're welcome," Kellerman spoke up sarcastically. "Your gratitude is almost overwhelming here, Jane."

"Don't start with me, Paul," she warned, glaring a little his way.

"Or what? You'll handcuff me to a flagpole and call the cops while you make a clean getaway? Oh... wait... we've already done that..." he snarked.

"That was _nine years ago_ and I don't have time for your dramatics," she countered.

Glancing around the room, Linc found he wasn't the only one whose eyes were bouncing between the two like they were watching a tennis match.

"No, because you have a _mission_ , right?" he asked. "You just can't resist jumping into bed with those Burrows boys, now can you, Jane? Figuratively speaking, this time... I presume."

Linc's eyebrows shot up at that and for not the first time he tried very hard not to think about what, exactly, Jane's relationship with his father had been.

"Seriously, Paul?" she grit out, her hand automatically resting on her sidearm. "You want to do this here? Now?"

"You know me. Anytime. Anywhere. Well... preferably without the glock..." Kellerman replied eyeing her right hand. "How _did_ you get that through airport security, anyhow?"

"Wouldn't you love to know," she smirked a little and Linc found himself surprised to see the faintest bit of honest amusement in her eyes.

"O-kay," Alex ventured cautiously. "Now that whatever that was is out of the way, as Jane said, we're off schedule. If we're going to be at the rendezvous point on time, we need to move it."

"He'll wait," Linc said with certainty. "Even if we're late. He'll wait."

"I'd rather not find out," Jane countered. "And the longer he stays in one place, the more likely someone is to notice."

"As fun as it's been, I think this is where we part ways," Kellerman spoke up. "Sara, Jane... always a pleasure."

"Thank you again, Paul," Sara said, for what felt to Lincoln like the dozenth time in the last two hours.

"Don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out," Jane responded, far less charitably, and Lincoln didn't bother fighting his grin at her comment.

"Ouch," he winced fakely. "Careful, Jane or I'd think you hadn't missed me."

"Like I miss athlete's foot," she bit back.

"You know? I'd almost forgotten what a way with words you have," he smiled at her.

"Liar," she countered as he backed out the doorway still grinning.

"Yeah," he admitted. "Yeah, I really am."

As the door closed behind Kellerman's retreating form, the entire atmosphere of the room shifted. LJ let out a big sigh of relief, Sara's form relaxed a little and Jane's gaze lingered on the door. Say what you would about the bastard, but Paul Kellerman had presence, that much was for sure.

"This is where we part ways, too," Jane reminded the group and Linc felt Sofia grasp his hand tightly.

"Just... give me a second?" Sara requested, moving over to the corner with her son and waking him up gently.

Linc studiously ignored her conversation with the little boy, turning the other direction toward LJ instead.

"I know you think you're getting left out on this, but you're not," he told his son. "None of us is safe until this is over and I need you to help keep Sofia and Mikey safe."

"Yeah," LJ agreed, finally sounding like maybe he partly meant it after days of arguing over which group he'd go with. "I got it."

Lincoln roughly pulled his son into a tight hug, thumping him on the back for good measure.

"Don't get dead, kid," he muttered.

"You either," LJ replied, squeezing back before letting go.

"We'll be fine, Lincoln," Sofia said from his side and he turned to find her looking up at him with absolute confidence.

Determination shone brightly in her dark eyes and he knew she had no doubt that they'd pull this crazy plan off. Moments like this reminded him why he'd fallen in love with her in the first place. She was understated, but never soft-spoken, with an infectious confidence that seemed to draw everyone else in.

He leaned down and kissed her, soft and quickly. He wasn't going to make any grand, sweeping declarations. He wasn't that guy and, anyhow, after four years together she had a pretty good idea what he felt anyhow.

"Look, if things go ass-forward-"

"Lincoln," she groaned, rolling her eyes.

"If they do-"

"They won't."

"But if they _do_ , Sofia," he said insistently, his hands heavy on her shoulders. "If they _do_ , I want you to take Mikey, take LJ and do whatever the hell you have to do to keep yourselves safe. You got me?"

"Yes, Lincoln, I understand," Sofia agreed. "Now go get your brother."

"We ready?" Jane's voice called out.

Sara reapproached the group with a now-awake Mikey still in her arms. She put on a valiant front, handing him over to Sofia with a kiss to his crown and a barely-lingering touch of his hand. But Lincoln could still see that her hand shook slightly and her glassy eyes dammed up unshed tears.

"We're ready," Sara replied, her voice resolute and clear.

"Natalie will be accompanying LJ, Sofia, Felicia and Mikey to a safe house along the coast. Greg, Pedro, Oliver, Alex, Sara, Lincoln and I will be hitting the rendezvous point to pick up Sucre before heading to a boat docked in Freeport, Texas which we'll take to the island where Michael is being held," Jane detailed. "If all goes well, we'll meet back up at the safe house in three days."

"And if all _doesn't_ go well?" Linc asked

"We'll use Michael's system to get in touch and regroup," Jane replied.

"The website?" Alex questioned and Jane nodded in confirmation.

"How the hell did you know about that?" Linc asked guardedly.

"I have my ways," she replied cagily.

"Well if you know, then how do we know that the Company doesn't know about it?" Linc countered.

"Because if they had then they'd have used it to lure you out before the whole Scylla thing and they've had no reason to invest much in the way of resources digging into your lives since the escape from Miami," she reminded them.

"Let's go," Sara suggested in a tone that reminded Linc startlingly of the instructions she'd given as a doctor, steady and sure but a little detached. "There's no time to waste."

Jane nodded sharply at the other woman before looking at her own people and tilting her head toward the exit in silent instruction. They filed in the direction she'd indicated without comment, but Jane grabbed Natalie's wrist as she walked past.

"I don't have to tell you that this isn't just a babysitting assignment, but I'm going to remind you of that anyhow," Jane levelled with the petite brunette. "If they can find you, they will. Lay low, follow protocol and do not be afraid to use the skill-sets of the people around you to your advantage. Agent Lang has _years_ of field experience in the FBI and LJ has seen a lot of how these people work. They're assets, not liabilities."

The younger woman stared back at Jane with a hard look that Lincoln was pretty sure meant she didn't entirely agree with everything Jane was saying, but she nodded in agreement anyhow.

"Understood," she replied sharply before proceeding out the door to an SUV just outside.

"Your taste in girls is kinda screwy, LJ. You know that, right?" Linc asked his son, following the woman just out of her earshot.

LJ shrugged.

"I like the freckles," he replied.

"The _freckles_?" Lincoln asked, stopping mid-stride to look at his son in bewilderment.

"Yeah," LJ confirmed. "Well... and her ass."

This explanation made a great deal more sense to Linc and he gave a little shrug of acquiescence.

"If I were you I'd watch what you say around her," Jane interrupted as Sofia made a little huff of indignation on Natalie's behalf. "That _girl_ with the freckles and the ass you like so much could have you hogtied and staring down the barrel of her 9 mm in under fifteen seconds."

"God that's hot," LJ breathed, staring back at the woman walking ahead of him.

"Yeah... when this is over you're getting more therapy," Linc announced decisively, to which LJ just laughed.

It was a good note to part on, deceptively light and somewhat ridiculous. Last minute goodbyes were quick and before much time had passed at all, Linc found himself seated next to Sara in a minivan headed south through rural Texas.

"Did you carjack a soccer mom or what, Jane?" he asked, utterly incapable of listening to the silence that had fallen over the occupants of the van for another second.

The blonde sitting shotgun - most likely in the truest sense of the term - offered a brief, disbelieving glance back in his direction.

"Yes, because that's fantastically low-profile," she responded.

"You _bought_ this thing?" he questioned, disbelief coloring his voice.

"I did," she confirmed. "Or, technically, Pedro did."

"Well, I hope we don't need to make a fast getaway or anything because I'm pretty sure a kid riding his bike on a paper route could outrun us," Linc said with a grimace.

"And how would _you_ propose we transport eight adults in one car, Linc?" Jane asked.

"Quit it," Sara said quietly, never turning her gaze from the window where she'd been watching the Texan landscape drift by since the moment they'd gotten underway. "Antagonizing her isn't going to make this go any faster or any smoother."

Linc pushed back the urge to continue to bait Jane. It was pointless, he knew, and pissing her off would achieve nothing other than potentially earning himself a split lip or a black eye.

The silence in the car was nearly as stifling as the tension and he couldn't _believe_ that he'd actually forgotten how frustrating sitting around and waiting could be when the stakes were this high. But, apparently, he had. Somehow in four short years, his memories of being on the run had dwindled down to fire fights and car chases and awkwardly cramped sleeping arrangements.

He'd never dealt with this well, the waiting. Maybe it was borne of his many years spent sitting around on death row. The experience had taught him a lot of things, but patience wasn't one of them. Sara, however... Sara had always handled this kind of atmosphere in stoic silence. And this time, he noted, was no different.

He watched her watching out the window, staring blankly at cars and trucks speeding by through the heavily tinted glass. She wasn't seeing them, of that he was sure. Her mind was miles away, torn between an unnamed island and an unmapped safe house.

He knew the feeling.

"Jane..." came Pedro's voice from the driver's seat in a tone that Lincoln _really_ didn't like.

"I see it," Jane replied, voice steady and all business.

Linc's gaze shot around, instinctively looking for whatever threat might have cropped up.

"Take the next exit," Jane instructed, gathering up her things.

It was then - when red and blue lights blinked through their windows and a telltale siren let out a single, staccato warning call - that Lincoln realized they'd been looking in the rearview mirrors and there was a highway patrolman directly on their trail.

"This isn't happening," Sara mumbled, shaking her head in disbelief.

"It's one cop, Sara. A highway patrolman. It's nothing," he said reassuringly, though from the look on her face she didn't believe him any more than he believed himself.

Had he honestly just been frustrated at being bored?

"Get your stuff together fast and duck down," Jane yelled back at the occupants of the van.

"Grab my pack too, Jane," Pedro told the blonde.

"What you don't want to get busted with a semi-automatic by the Texas Highway Patrol, Pedro?" Jane questioned with an amused look.

"Funny, Jane. Been there. Done that," he replied as the two shared a knowing look.

"Do we have a plan for this or..." Alex asked from the row behind Linc, hunched awkwardly between Jane's other two teammates.

"We do," Pedro confirmed.

"I'll make the call as soon as we're clear," Jane told the driver solemnly. "If you get the chance to get away clean, take it. But you've got to maintain protocol."

"Yeah, I know," Pedro replied, signaling that he was pulling over. "I just hate missing all the fun. And I hate letting the team down."

"We're square, Pedro," she told him, cool eyes staring at him over the rim of her glasses as she slouched low in her seat. "You didn't even owe me this much."

"Nah," he agreed. "But I owed Aldo."

"We _all_ owed Aldo," she sighed as the van rolled to a stop on the shoulder of the highway.

"Hang on back there," Pedro shouted back toward his passengers. "Things are about to get messy."

The van was stock silent for a long couple of seconds and Linc could swear he heard the patrolman's car door slam shut.

" _Now_ ," Jane hissed and Pedro floored it, the passengers of the van all suddenly tossed around like rag dolls.

"Be ready to bail out as soon as the van stops and run to the nearest side street," Pedro told them. "Then act natural."

"Faster, Pedro," Jane said, her tone warning.

"It's a Grand Caravan, Jane," Pedro said, eyes still glued to the road as he weaved in and out of traffic, pushing the vehicle to its limits.

"I don't care if it's a damn stagecoach, this plan only works if the rest of us slip past the patrolman undetected. If this timing is off, we've got much bigger problems," she reminded him.

The van jerked suddenly, sharply to the right as it took an exit ramp and Linc felt his temple slam against the window with a solid thud.

"Son of a bitch," he grumbled, instinctively pressing his palm to his head.

"You bleeding?" Sara asked, a familiar note of concern and professionalism ringing in her voice.

"I'm fine," he replied.

"Be ready," Jane reminded them all, as if they needed it. "And shut the door after you get out."

The van careened around a corner at an impressive speed, wheels screeching against the pavement as it fishtailed a little before grinding to a sudden halt.

"Go, go, go!" Jane ordered, flinging open her door and scrambling to slip between two warehouses.

The other five nearly tripped over each other in their haste to follow suit.

It felt like it took forever. Linc was certain that the cop - or one of the dozens more that surely had been called in to catch their renegade van - would round that corner at any second, guns drawn and ready to throw the lot of them back into prison. Sara tripped and skinned her palm, costing them precious seconds, and Alex nearly forgot to close the van door, having to double-back two steps to do so. It was sloppy. Rushed. They were certainly out of practice and there was no learning curve here.

In the end though, the six of them managed to disappear down the alleyway and Pedro sped off in the van. Five very loud, pounding heartbeats later, the cop car followed after Pedro in hot pursuit.

"This way," Jane instructed, surveying the area before nodding her head to indicate the chainlink fence at the back of the warehouses.

"What's the plan now?" Linc asked anxiously.

But Jane had other things on her mind than answering him. She scaled the fence quickly, far quicker than he or Alex or Sara would be able to, and for the first time Linc found himself wondering if they'd honestly be able to keep up with Jane and her people. It didn't matter, though. Not really. They would do this because they had to. Because there was no other choice. Because Michael needed them. And they would succeed out of sheer will if nothing else.

"We need an extraction," Jane was saying into a cell phone by the time Linc lowered himself down on the other side of the fence.

"Don't give me that shit," she hissed into the phone. "This hasn't gone _that_ bad. It's just a matter of getting Pedro out of Highway Patrol's hands. Send in someone as INS and 'deport' him. This is _easy_.

"Yeah, I got that when you outlined what exactly 'limited resources' entailed," she said sarcastically. "... _Thank you_.

"Jesus, what a pain in the ass," she shook her head as she snapped the phone shut.

"Warrens?" one of Jane's people asked.

Linc really figured he ought to learn which was which, considering there were only two left.

"Yeah," Jane replied.

"Shoulda called Carsen," the man replied.

"He's out of pocket right now or I would have," Jane informed him.

"Hate to break this up, but we're kind of on a deadline here," Alex spoke up, looking a little anxious.

"We need another car. Now," Jane said, letting the previous conversation with her colleague die instantly.

They were in a parking lot, sparsely populated with few options large enough for their needs. Still... there _were_ options.

"Grand theft auto it is, then," Linc smiled thinly.

"Less messy than carjacking a soccer mom," Jane shot back as she selected an SUV with fairly dark tinting and pulled a pair of gloves out of her bag before going to work on the locks.

"You might want to put on gloves too," one of Jane's men half-instructed, half-suggested as he tossed pairs to Sara, Alex and Lincoln. "Last thing we need is a stray fingerprint in a stolen car."

"How long do we have until the meet?" Sara asked, pulling on a pair of latex gloves like she'd done a thousand times before as she continually surveyed the parking lot.

"...three minutes," Alex said, checking his watch.

"And we're how far away?" Linc asked.

"About thirty minutes," Jane grunted as she opened the door to the SUV and went to work hotwiring it with astounding speed. "Better hope you're right about him waiting."

"I am," Linc countered quickly, hoping like hell even as he said it that Sucre had learned more patience than he had while in prison.

"Bingo," Jane announced as the SUV roared to life. "Hop in and buckle up."

Jane set the car's cruise control to two miles per hour beneath the speed limit, used her turn signal every time she changed lanes and basically drove like the DMV manual come to life. It was appropriately cautious. It was necessary. It was _maddening_.

After exactly thirty-two minutes of driving - and, yes, Lincoln was counting - and absolutely no problems whatsoever aside from a few ticked off speeders who'd flipped Jane off as they'd passed her, the SUV pulled into a closed down rest stop off the freeway.

"Damn it," Sara uttered, eyes scanning the empty parking lot as if a car might materialize in it somewhere if she looked long enough and hard enough.

"Maybe he's late," Lincoln asserted, his voice more like a question than a statement.

"Pull around back?" Alex suggested and Jane tilted her head in acquiescence.

The SUV pulled behind the abandoned building along a small service road, but again found it empty.

"Stop the damn car," Lincoln grumbled.

Much to his surprise, Jane complied.

The car door slammed with a resounding noise, all of Lincoln's frustration thundering in the unnecessary force exerted against it. He stood where thick-bladed grass met the edge of chipped away concrete and wished like hell that he had something he could punch.

He didn't realize Sara had exited the car until she planted herself beside him and squinted into the sunlight. She didn't even glance sideways at him, instead choosing to wrap her arms around her midsection to ward off the cold as she surveyed the flat, sparsely-treed landscape.

"We've just started this thing and it already seems like everything's going bad," Linc grumbled to her after a beat.

"We'll adapt," she replied, as if it were obvious.

Really, maybe it was. They didn't have any option but to adapt. They'd succeed or die trying and they both knew it.

"Like Michael did," she followed up, finally glancing toward her brother-in-law. "How many things didn't go according to plan when you broke out of Fox River?"

"Too many things," he replied, mulling it over. "Everything. And a lot of people died because of it."

"We have Jane this time," she pointed out.

"And we had Michael last time," Linc retorted. "Jane's great and all and I know she's got experience doing shit like this, but she's no Michael."

"Well, your father thought pretty highly of her, so how about we give her the benefit of the doubt," Sara suggested.

"Jesus, I don't even wanna think about what my father may or may not have thought of her," Linc half-laughed.

Sara snickered a little and raised her eyebrows at Linc, but said nothing.

"What's so funny?" came a voice with a distinctive accent and Sara and Linc both turned with great surprise to find Sucre standing a few feet away.

"Sucre! You're here!" Linc exclaimed.

"Yeah, Sink. You called. Where else would I be? How ya been?" Sucre asked, enveloping the larger man in a hug and thumping him once on the back.

"What the hell? Did you walk here or what?" Lincoln asked bewildered.

"I got here early. Parked up the road a ways," Sucre offered. "Better safe than sorry, I figured. I didn't wanna be sitting around in my car waiting for a secret meeting at a closed building for too long, right?"

He turned to Sara and kissed her on the cheek.

"Doc, you look good," he followed up. "How's the pececito doing?"

"Mikey's good," she answered, tensing a little as if she'd just remembered how far away he was from her. "Sofia and LJ are keeping an eye on him at the moment."

"They here, too?" he asked looking around, the SUV drawing his attention as the doors opened and the other occupants piled out of the car.

"No..." Sara said slowly.

"Alex?" Sucre asked in surprise, earning a smile and a nod from the other man.

"Something's up, man," Linc said abruptly. "Somethin' big."

"Yeah, I figured. Otherwise I'd' be back home right now, right?" he asked, laughing a little as he looked back and forth between Sara and Lincoln. "So, what gives? We gotta save the world again or what, Sink?"

"Not the world," Jane's voice broke in, drawing his attention. "Just one person."

"Who's this?" Sucre asked thumbing toward Jane.

"Jane Phillips, Fernando Sucre. Jane used to work with my father," Linc said shortly. "She's been working against the Company since way before we even knew it existed."

"Woah, woah, woah," Sucre said, holding his hands up as if to emphasize his words. " _Working_? You mean _worked_ , right? Company's gone, man. We buried those bastards."

"You hit them hard, no doubt," Jane nodded. "But they aren't gone entirely. They splintered into smaller, less powerful groups after the Syclla debacle."

"So now there's what? _Companies_ to worry about?" Sucre asked astounded as he ran his hands through his hair.

"That's my problem," Jane answered brusquely. "And it's not why you're here. Not directly, anyhow."

"So why am I here, then?" Sucre finally asked, looking a little perplexed.

"It's probably better that I show you," Jane asserted, pulling a laptop out of her bag and placing it on a weathered picnic table. "Before I do, though. I want to assure you that you are free to walk away from this if you choose to. We'll be going on this recovery mission either way. Lincoln and Sara seem to feel you'd be a great asset to this operation, which is why we're offering you the opportunity to join us.

"If you _do_ join us, we'll have eyes on your wife and daughter to ensure their safety," Jane continued, staring gravely at an increasingly nervous-looking Sucre. "It's unlikely they'd be targeted given the resources we believe this arm of the Company has at its disposal, but I wouldn't say it's out of the realm of possibility."

"I gotta tell you, you're not really selling me on this mission of yours so far," Sucre replied with a little laugh.

"Well... they say a picture's worth a thousand words," she replied, turning the laptop screen toward the bewildered looking Puerto Rican.

"What is... Who's..." he started.

"That's Michael," Sara told him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He looked at her with wide eyes, brimming with hope and disbelief.

"Sucre, that's a live feed," she continued, nodding a little in reassurance as she spoke. "Michael's alive and the Company has him. They've had him for over four years."

He looked back at the screen, shellshocked and a little manic looking. Truth be told, it was a little hard for Lincoln to watch. He'd always been a reserved man and the Puerto Rican was anything but.

"Dios mío! Yo no me lo creo. Es loco!" He exclaimed. "Oye, papi! No sabía. Lo siento mucho, papi. Ya voy. Lo juro, Fish. Ya voy y vamos a hacerles pagar. Madre de Dios, lo juro sobre la tumba de mi madre, i le devolverá a su familia, mi amigo!"

Sucre's voice was impassioned and even with only sparing him the smallest of uncomfortable glances, it was obvious to Lincoln that the other man was in tears. Linc had picked up a fair bit of Spanish over the years, both from Sofia and from life in general in Central America, but Sucre's speech was so rapid-fire that he could barely pick out a few words. However, it seemed to make a great deal more sense to Jane.

"I take it that you're coming, then?" she asked.

"Si," he said nodding fiercely, wiping away tears from his cheeks. "Yes. Let's go get him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to belatedly recognize my beta, Andacus, for the line in the previous chapter about pulling Sara's pigtails. It was brilliant and greatly improved the chapter. Secondly, I have to apologize for the portion of this chapter that's in Spanish. I don't speak Spanish and the online translation programs are… imprecise.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

Pulling up to the marina and seeing the boat for the first time was somehow both a relief and heightened Sara's anxiety simultaneously. Every step brought them closer to Michael. And every step brought them closer to danger. She was keenly aware of how lucky they'd been thus far, in spite of a handful of minor glitches. And experience had taught Sara that luck could change without warning, that turning left instead of right could put you face-to-face with a hitman instead of your boyfriend's brother. God but she'd learned that lesson the hard way. Luck was fickle, unreliable, and counting on it was like playing russian roulette.

" _That's_ the boat?" Linc asked warily, glancing at Jane as they proceeded up the dock toward a compact-looking yacht.

"It is," she confirmed, not sparing him a look as she maintained her pace.

"How many nights are we going to be on it?" Alex asked, though Sara was sure he hadn't forgotten this or any other detail of the plan.

"Two or three if things go according to plan," Jane said succinctly. "Possibly longer if we need to."

"And... how many beds does it have?" Linc finally asked, dreading the answer.

"A double and two singles," Jane responded crisply.

"There's seven of us," Linc pointed out unnecessarily.

"Yes, thank you, I can count," Jane replied. "Someone's got to drive and we'll need someone on watch at all times anyhow. We'll just have to sleep in shifts. The boat's fast, it's quiet and it's what I could get, so just smile and say 'thank you' and we'll get going."

Linc did smile, though thinly and with questionable sincerity, but what he said wasn't exactly 'thank you.'

"Dibs on a single," he said and Sara rolled her eyes.

"Oye, I got through prison without sharing a bed with a man. I'm not about to start now," Sucre protested hotly.

"I'll leave the arrangements on that for you boys to bicker over," Jane said evenly, stepping aboard the boat. "Greg, you'll drive first. Oliver, Linc, Sucre and Alex get some sleep. Sara and I are on first watch."

Sara looked at the other woman with surprise.

"There's a few things I want to discuss with you," Jane added a little quieter and Sara's brow furrowed a little as she nodded sharply in reply.

"Rock, paper, scissors for the singles?" Alex suggested as the four men made their way below deck and their voices became muffled by distance and walls.

"Take her out Greg," Jane instructed and the tall, reedy man tilted his head in agreement before heading toward to start the boat's motor.

Jane's eyes trained along the docks as they eased out into open water, scanning methodically for observers or dangers or signs of trouble that Sara knew she might not even recognize. The blonde had been at this a long time - at least nine years if her conversation with Kellerman earlier had been any indication - and she clearly knew what she was doing. After all, she was still alive, wasn't she?

"We're clear," Jane said finally, after taking a moment to scan the open sea with binoculars as well.

"So... you and Kellerman?" Sara asked curiously.

"There's history," Jane acknowledged with a shrug.

"Personal or professional?" Sara wondered aloud.

"Yes," Jane responded succinctly. "In case you hadn't noticed, he's got a bit of a thing for women who stand up to him and he's spectacularly bad at separating his personal life from his professional one."

Jane was eyeing her with a knowing look that left Sara feeling more than a little ill-at-ease. Paul Kellerman's attraction to her might sit fairly close to the surface, but she still felt wholly uncomfortable acknowledging it.

"I wrapped a cord around his throat and tried to strangle him once," Sara said, in a tone that sounded like a counter-argument.

Jane laughed sharply.

"If you think attempting to murder him will in any way dissuade Paul's interest in you, you're very wrong," Jane replied with an honest-to-God smile.

Sara fidgeted with the cuffs of her sleeves uncomfortably as she broke eye-contact and stared back out at the calm, blue-green waters of the Caribbean.

"How long until we get there?" Sara asked, her hands running along her upper arms more out of anxiety than out of reaction to the slight chill that seeped through her jacket.

"We'll be in position by early tomorrow afternoon but we can't move until nightfall," Jane replied. "The element of surprise is our greatest asset and we need the cover of dark to maintain that as long as possible."

"So tomorrow night then," Sara said, voice sounding far away even to her own ears as she stared seaward.

In a little more than 24-hours, she might see Michael again. She wasn't honestly sure how to process that and, until now, there'd been planning and running to keep her mind occupied enough that she really hadn't had the chance to think it over. Now, with empty ocean and empty hours stretching out before her, Sara found she couldn't _not_ think about it.

It had been years since she had been this anxious. But then, it had also been years since she'd wanted anything this badly.

She couldn't help but recall Lincoln's haunting words spoken on another boat just days ago. There really was nothing so horrible as _hope_. And, _God_ , but she had both horror and hope in spades these days.

"Doctor..." Jane began.

"I haven't been a doctor in a _long_ time," Sara scoffed a little, glancing sideways, grateful for the momentary distraction.

"But you were one," Jane countered. "And because of that and your own experiences, you're more aware than most that captivity can have a wide range of effects on people."

Sara's brow furrowed in worry and she hugged her arms around her midsection as she nodded, half in understanding and half urging Jane to go on.

"We don't really know what state he'll be in when we get him back," Jane said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Physically, it seems he's been cared for, but beyond that... he'll be different. Of that you can be sure. This isn't four years ago. He's been through a lot and you need to be prepared for that."

Something seemed hollow in the other woman's gaze.

"You say that like someone who's been there," Sara said, fishing a little.

"I was DEA once," Jane offered up. "We had a bust in Columbia, outside Cali. It went bad. Looking back, it had all the signs of a setup. But I was young, new to the job, desperate to prove myself. I didn't know any better, yet. I spent four months being held by the cartel. Watched every other person on my team be executed. The Company rescued me, earned my loyalty instantly. It wasn't until years later that I figured out they'd set up the whole thing in the first place to have eyes and ears inside the DEA. By then, I was in too deep to get out. Until Aldo came along, of course. But that's a different story."

"Sounds like more of the same story to me," Sara replied.

"Maybe," Jane acknowledged. "But this isn't the time for that. I have something I need to show you."

"What?" Sara asked, certain it couldn't be good, whatever it was.

"Stay here, watch the horizon for _anything_ ," Jane instructed. "I'll be right back."

Sara did as she was told, staring at the vast expanse of empty sea as she thought. She knew Jane was right, knew it in her bones. She'd been held by The Company for just days before escaping them in Panama, but she knew the experience had changed her. Michael had been held for _years_. She ran her hands through her long auburn hair, stress of the day catching up to her. She just wanted Michael back, just wanted to have him hold her and meet their son and have all of them disappear together. It didn't seem like that much to ask for. Not really.

Jane reappeared suddenly with the laptop in hand and Sara eyed the machine warily.

"We've only had someone in place in the facility since just after the General died, as you know," Jane said, opening the laptop and entering in a password. "The person running the facility changed at the same time, just a few weeks ago. We have no idea what things were like for Michael under the previous regime. We, do, however, have some information about the current one."

"Okay," Sara said nervously as Jane cued up a video and turned it to face her.

She knew she'd see his image, but the sight of Michael, older with longer hair confined in that room, still jolted Sara. What she wasn't prepared for, what startled her more than the sight of her supposedly-dead husband, was the sight of a second person in that room with him.

Michael's face hardened visibly as a second person walked up to him, infringing on the edges of his personal space. It was a woman, auburn-haired and wearing a white lab coat.

"That's Dr. Middleton," Jane informed her. "She's running the facility. Three months ago she was a blonde."

"I had that shirt. I wore it all the time when I worked at Fox River," Sara said numbly as she eyed the woman on the screen. "Those earrings, too."

"She appears to be doing everything she can to look like you, short of plastic surgery," Jane said levelly.

Sara's eyes broke from the screen to catch Jane's gaze.

" _Why_?" Sara asked gravely.

"Psychological warfare? An attempt at coercion? Seduction? We don't really know. But there's no way that _doesn't_ effect Michael on some level," Jane pointed out. "And there's every possibility that he'll keep himself distant from you because of her attempt to relate herself to you in his mind."

Sara's eyes clenched shut and she fought back a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with seasickness. The Company had wormed their way into every aspect of her life. But the idea of it corrupting her relationship with Michael, the very thought of them twisting it and using it for their benefit to manipulate him for their own means, had her blood boiling and her stomach churning.

"I thought you should know," Jane followed-up.

"I, um... I can't say I'd be sorry if a bullet found its way into her head in the middle of everything?" Sara realized aloud, her voice tinged with a nervous bite of laughter.

She could feel Jane's eyes studying her, looking for something. She felt raw enough, emotions close to the surface enough, that she was sure there was plenty for someone with Jane's skillset to read in her countenance. She wondered, momentarily, what exactly the other woman found.

"Just so we're clear," Jane began, voice fading off a bit before she picked back up. "You're not the type to go off after her vigilante style, are you?"

"What? No," Sara protested jarringly, eyes snapping to Jane's gaze. "My only priority is getting Michael and getting us back to my son - _our_ son - safely. I'm not about to let anything get in the way of that."

"Good," Jane said sharply after a beat, looking satisfied with the answer.

"I'm just saying... I'm just saying that if you had a clean shot, I might not be morally opposed to you taking it," Sara breathed as a follow up, feeling a little ill at the truth of her admission.

"You used to have a real problem with killing," Jane pointed out.

"I used to be a doctor," Sara replied. "Like a lot of other things, they took that from me."

"Yeah," Jane echoed, something like sympathy shading her voice. "I know the feeling."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

The last time Jane Phillips _hadn't_ slept with a weapon under her pillow she was twenty-six years old and tied to a chair somewhere southwest of Bogota. It was a hardly an oddity in their world. Aldo had done the same. Paul had too. Though... in Paul's case, she wasn't sure if that had been a regular occurrence or directly related to her presence. Life was short in their line of work, but it was shorter still for the ill-prepared who let their guard down.

So when someone woke her up, hovering over her and poking her in the arm, Jane acted on fifteen years of instinct. It was swift. It was decisive. It scared the ever-loving hell out of someone.

" _Dios mio!_ She's loco!" a man's voice cried out in a panic as twin bursts of laughter rumbled further away.

Eyes still blinking away the fog of sleep, Jane found her knife pressed solidly against the throat of one rather terrified looking Puerto Rican who she'd somehow managed to pin against the wall. She paused a moment, allowing the situation to seep into her mind before she pulled the weapon away from the man's neck and released him without a word.

"That was amazing," laughed Greg from the doorway as Oliver grinned and nodded alongside him.

"Amazing?" Sucre asked, his voice squeaking a little. "She was a sneeze away from slitting my throat! You knew she'd do that?"

"You don't poke the sleeping dragon without expecting to get a little singed," Oliver told him wisely.

"Who the hell is driving the boat if you're both down here?" Jane asked finally, sheathing her knife and backing up to give Sucre a little much-needed breathing room.

"No one," Greg told her. "We're here. That's why we came to wake you."

"Well, that and the joy of watching the new guy nearly wet himself," Oliver agreed as Sucre protested hotly.

"This is not the time for hazing," Jane replied succinctly as she pulled her hair harshly back into a ponytail. "Where are the others?"

"Above deck prepping the gear," Greg told her, tilting his chin toward the stairwell.

Jane nodded as she slipped her shoes on and looked toward the still-shaken best friend and former cellmate of their rescue target. For not the first time, she wondered at Lincoln's insistence on having him here. They needed Sara's medical knowledge, Alex's experience and general brilliance, Lincoln's brawn. But what, exactly, did Fernando Sucre bring beyond dedication and loyalty to Michael? Then again, maybe that was the whole point. Still, Jane couldn't help but question if his presence helped their chances, or hurt them.

"You good?" she asked him, sizing him up as she spoke.

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm okay," he nodded, laughing a little nervously. "Just remind me not to get on your bad side. You're one scary lady!"

"Go on up and check on the others," she told him with a nod. "We'll be there in a moment."

"You'd better not die today. You owe me fifty bucks. He didn't piss himself," Oliver told Greg as soon as Sucre tromped up the stairs and out of earshot.

"Could you possibly act more like trained operatives and less like frat boys for the day?" Jane asked sharply, earning sheepish looks from both of them.

"Jane, about the alternate objective..." Greg began, turning all business and earning a piercing look from the blonde that killed his words in his throat.

"We're not discussing that. It's not happening. I won't accept the need for it," Jane said in a tone that allowed for no dissention. "We get in, recover the target and get out or we die trying. That's all there is to it."

Oliver and Greg looked to each other with a grimace that she read as plainly as if they'd spoken aloud.

"This is Aldo's _family_. He gave up everything for their safety and then he died for them," Jane reminded them.

"Aldo spent his life trying to take down The Company. He _died_ trying to bring down The Company," Greg reminded her.

"Don't you _dare_ lecture me about Aldo," Jane hissed. "I knew him a _hell_ of a lot better than either one of you."

"No one's arguing that," Greg replied, holding his palms up in what was probably meant to be a calming gesture.

"It's just... We're so close, Jane," Oliver said solemnly, completely countering any attempt Greg had made toward defusing the situation. "So close. For the first time ever the demise of The Company is an actual possibility. If they can't get that data, those resources, they're done. If we can't rescue him..."

Fury built from the roots of Jane's soul and she stood toe-to-toe with Oliver, a finger poking him in the chest as she spoke lowly.

"You listen to me now, _both_ of you. I don't care what our orders are. Warrens isn't the one on the ground and this isn't his mission. It's _mine_. No one, _no one_ , hurts a single hair on Michael Scofield's head or by God and country I'll make you wish that Aldo had never saved your asses in the first place," she seethed. "Are we clear?"

"Crystal," Oliver agreed quietly, gulping as he spoke.

She looked to Greg and watched as the other man nodded.

"Good," she said, taking a step back and grabbing an already-stocked waterproof bag sitting in the corner of the room. "Let's get going then. It's not getting any darker out."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

In the black of night, inky waves lapped against Lincoln's feet as he and his six allies quietly came ashore beneath the sole dock on the isolated island. The boat would have been a dead giveaway to their presence so the group had swam to shore, leaving the yacht anchored and unmanned out at sea.

Wordlessly, the group removed their scuba tanks and changed out of their drysuits, stashing the pile as far out of sight beneath the wooden pier as they were able. It was a risk, certainly, but a calculated one. They'd need the supplies to return to the boat, but they definitely couldn't carry them with as they attempted the rescue. One of Jane's men covered the pile with a sand-colored tarp and Lincoln prayed, not for the first time, that everything would go smoothly.

Jane pulled open a waterproof bag and quickly handed out small earpieces and weapons to everyone in the group. He moved to put the earpiece in immediately and took a second to survey the area as he did so.

Light flooded out from both of the bigger buildings, spilling around the dock in a way that made them seem brighter than they undoubtedly were. While he couldn't see anyone from where they currently were, he could hear feet shuffle overhead unsettlingly close. A sharp intake of air to his right told him Sara had heard it too and he tensed in anticipation of discovery that never came. The footsteps faded, their steady gait moving away at an unhurried pace, and Sara blew a long exhale through her pursed lips.

"If you shoot, shoot to kill," Jane's hushed voice rang out through his earpiece and Lincoln's eyes darted to her in surprise.

She must have interpreted his furrowed brow - or the identical one Sara undoubtedly wore - correctly because she elaborated a moment later.

"It will be easier on us if we can avoid detection all together, but if we're made then we need to eliminate the threat. A wounded agent can still expose us," she reminded them.

"And dead men tell no tales," one of Jane's men followed up with an easy smile that left Lincoln wondering if maybe the man had been doing this sort of thing for too long.

"Dead men tell plenty of tales," Sara contradicted, voice quiet but urgent. "They certainly tell that there's intruders here if someone finds the body."

"We do this my way," Jane reminded her solemnly, clearly indicating that it wasn't open for debate.

To Lincoln's surprise, Sara nodded with little hesitation.

"You're okay with this?" he asked her, covering his mouthpiece in an attempt to only be heard by her.

"You'd, um... you'd be surprised what I'm okay with if it means getting Michael back," she replied with an uneasy little laugh as she tucked her hair behind her ears.

"Aren't you?" She questioned, looking at him hesitantly, like she needed his affirmation to put her conscience at ease. "Okay with it, I mean? Given everything."

He thought about it honestly for a moment. There was a lot of blood on his hands at this point, most of it Company, most of it in immediate reaction to a threat, little of it he regretted. It wasn't _him_ killing that gave him pause, it was Sara getting her hands dirty. Again. Still, he couldn't tell her that.

"He's my brother," Lincoln said gruffly, as if that was answer enough.

Sara nodded, so maybe it was.

The lights around the main building flickered and a slow grin spread across Jane's face.

"That's the signal from our man on the inside," she said. "Surveillance cameras are on a video loop for the next hour. Set your watches. We all have to be back here by... 2355 or we'll be caught on camera and facial recognition software will have us identified almost instantly."

Linc nodded and set his own watch before looking back up at the group.

"What the hell kind of time is 2355?" Sucre hissed toward Alex in confusion.

"Military time for five minutes to midnight," Alex replied quietly, fiddling with the other man's watch for him.

"She couldn't just say that?" Sucre questioned, earning a shrug from Alex and no response at all from the blonde in question.

"Greg, Oliver, perimeter check," Jane said with a jerk of her head toward the largest building.

The two men, dressed identically to Michael's guards who'd been barely visible on the surveillance video, strode confidently out from underneath the dock, walking in tandem to circle the main building. Lincoln held his breath, waiting for shouting or an alarm or gunfire, anything that indicated they'd been detected, but nothing happened. Strangely, he found himself thinking that in a lot of ways it was easier to be in the midst of a firefight than doing all this sneaking around. The tension was stifling and their deadline was making him antsy.

Seconds ticked by like minutes and for what seemed like forever Lincoln wondered if his watch was actually broken. But Jane seemed oddly at ease and eerily in control and soon enough the two men rounded the edge of the building and nonchalantly made their way back to the group.

"No surprises," the taller one said.

"On the dock above?" Jane asked.

"Three men who look bored as hell," the shorter one replied. "They're aboard the boat now."

"Well let's move before they do, shall we?" Jane asked rhetorically. "Oliver, Greg, you know what to do. Meet us at the arranged spot after its done-"

"Wait a minute, what are they-" Alex began suspiciously.

"There's no time for details," Jane said sharply, her blue eyes locking with Alex's challenging ones. "It's vital to the mission and it doesn't change our agenda."

"There _was_ plenty of time," Sara pointed out, sounding no less uncomfortable than Alex had.

"This is need-to-know and you don't," Jane replied crisply. "And we're wasting time, which is something _we don't have_."

"Go," Linc confirmed, nodding at Jane's two men before looking back to the blonde, mistrust surely evident in his gaze. "If this comes back to bite us in the ass..."

"It won't," Jane assured him confidently. "Now, you four follow me and _try_ to look like you belong here."

Looking at ease was, Linc knew, not his strong suit. Sucre's either, judging by the wooden gait his friend had adopted. Sara fared slightly better, stepping out from under the dock and making her way across the sand and onto the grass in Jane's wake, her steps purposeful and her head held defiantly. The only one of their group aside from Jane who actually looked casual was Alex.

Linc watched as Jane pressed something onto her thumb before the five of them approached the door to the main building. There were no guards standing watch but that hardly meant that there was no security. Jane flipped open a small electronic pad next to the door and moved to press her covered-thumb to it but, just as she did so, the door swung open and a startled looking man stood before them.

"Uh... sorry," he said, looking them over as Lincoln's heart pounded in his throat.

"No problem. Didn't hit any of us," Alex smiled thinly.

"Yeah," the guy said, taking a step away before halting in his tracks.

Lincoln's hand drifted of its own accord down to his gun, it's cool metal reassuring against his fingertips. Things couldn't go to hell now. Not this quickly. Not when they hadn't even gotten into the building.

"Are you, uh, are you new?" Alex asked the Company man proactively and Lincoln could _hear_ Sara gulp at his side.

"What?" the other guy asked, looking them over again.

"You didn't let the door shut all the way," Alex clarified, nodding his head toward the door Jane's foot had propped open. "Its security protocol."

"Oh, right, yeah," the guy shrugged. "I transferred in last week. Thanks for the reminder."

"Not a problem," Alex smiled thinly.

"It's just... you... you look kind of familiar," the man ventured, directing his gaze toward Linc.

"Yeah, you too," Lincoln lied. "Were you in on that thing in Turkey last year?"

"What thing in Turkey last year?" the guy puzzled.

"I'll take that as a no," Linc replied with a thin, insincere smile.

"We've gotta get going," Jane said, half by way of reminder and half in an attempt to rid themselves of the clueless Company agent.

"Yeah, sure. Have a nice night," the guy said before turning around, shaking his head as he wandered off.

Linc didn't let out a sigh of relief until the five of them were inside the building with the door solidly shut behind them.

"That was too close," Sara muttered.

"It took too much time and he still might remember who Lincoln is at any moment," Jane reminded them.

"Then what the hell are we standing around here for?" Lincoln asked gruffly.

Jane didn't answer directly, but nodded her head toward the stairwell to their right and drew her gun.

"Alex, take point with me," she instructed quietly as she began moving. "Fifth floor. We don't know which room, but we _do_ know he has two guards on him at all times, so that's what we're looking for. Take them both out as fast and quietly as possible. Linc, Sucre, watch our backs. Sara, you're keeping an eye on our flank."

They were up the stairs in no time flat and Lincoln felt sure that it was the adrenaline coursing through his veins that kept him from feeling at all winded from their hasty climb. Their soft footfalls echoed dimly in the empty hallway, a dull hum of fluorescent lighting the only accompaniment. It was a good sign, a _great_ sign. Abso-fucking-lutely ideal. But it set Lincoln further on edge anyhow.

"This is too easy," he mumbled beneath his breath.

"No such thing," Jane countered, her voice whispering through his earpiece.

Linc didn't argue his point with her aloud. Even if this had been the time and place for such a conversation, he was pretty sure that trying to convince Jane would be like talking to a brick wall. That didn't mean he agreed with her, though. In his experience, anytime things came too easily it just meant the other shoe loomed overhead, ready to drop.

"Team leader, phase one is complete," the voice of one of Jane's men crackled in Linc's ear.

"Acknowledged," Jane responded, methodically scanning the open door to a room before moving past it. "Move on to your secondary objective and grab our inside man."

"Confirmed," the voice replied and the line went silent again.

Linc chanced a glance down at his watch and winced as he looked back down the hallway ahead of them.

"Jane, I hate to state the obvious," he started. "But we've gotta pick up the pace here. We've got thirty-seven minutes left and if we're looking for two guards then this hall is-"

" _Oh my God_ ," Sara's voice broke in and Lincoln's eyes snapped toward her.

"Sara, what..." Jane began.

"That's his room," she said, swinging the door next to her open.

Part of Lincoln wanted to scream at her for being foolhardy and opening the door herself, heedless of any dangers that might lie beyond the threshold. But a bigger part of him, an overwhelming part, of him was solidly crushed at the sight of his brother's prison these past four years - empty.

Somewhere in the background, Lincoln could hear Jane reporting in to her team. Saying something about secondary locations and additional risk factors. But mostly... mostly Lincoln was trying not to watch Sara walking bewildered into the room.

His eyes drifted toward the wall under the surveillance camera they'd tapped into before. It stood like a vigil to the life that Michael had been denied, a goddamned memorial to the family he'd lost the chance to be a part of. Dozens of photos of everyone Michael loved were plastered carefully across the plain white wall - Sara building sandcastles with Mikey, LJ with his buddies at a football game in full face paint with the team's name written out across their bare chests, Linc sitting with Sofia on the dock in front of their boat with a pair of beers in their hands and contented smiles on their faces. It was jarring, the evidence of how close The Company had been to them for all these years. But more than that, it was enraging how they'd used him and Sara and Mikey to taunt Michael, to push him to do what they wanted.

Linc's eyes caught Sara's watery ones and his ire doubled twofold. She was holding it together, but only just - the pillow from Michael's bed clutched to her chest and a desperate quest for answers that he didn't have haunting her eyes.

"Where the fuck is he?" Lincoln seethed, turning toward Jane.

"We knew this was a possibility," she reminded him. "We've always known he leaves this room erratically for several hours a day."

"Where _the fuck_ is he?" Lincoln repeated, his voice lower and quieter than before but with so much more weight behind it.

"We don't know," Sara replied, drawing his frantic eyes again. "Isn't that right? We don't know."

"That's right," Jane replied, nodding solemnly toward Sara. "And we're running out of time fast."

"So what do we do?" Sucre interjected. "He's here, right? I mean, somewhere."

"We split up," Mahone replied, anticipating Jane's response. "We don't have a choice."

"Sara, Sucre and Linc - keep on this hallway. Alex and I will sweep the halls that shoot off from this one. Look for the guards. Shoot the guards. Get Michael. Get back to the stairwell," Jane ordered crisply.

It was definitely a plan that Lincoln could get behind.

"G'luck," he offered up toward Alex, even as they hurried back out the door that led to Michael's room.

Alex didn't reply in words, but the curt nod of his head and solemn expression spoke loudly for him. One of them would find Michael. Deadline or not, surrounded by Company assassins or not, they were not about to leave him behind. It was simply a matter of time.

Hours and days bled together for Michael, had for who knew how long. He worked when he could, ate when they fed him, exercised when they made him and slept when he was tired. When he needed to think, needed to remember, he stared at the pictures on his wall, made up stories behind them, tried to recall what Sara's fingers felt like tangled in his or the rich bass of Lincoln's laughter. Whenever that became too much to bear - which was often - he escaped to his lab and worked whether he felt up to it or not.

It was better than the alternative.

Like yesterday and the day before and hundreds upon hundreds of days before, there was nothing special about today. Nothing, that is, until the alarms rang out in their sharp staccato tone and the door to Michael's room swung open. Then, for the first time in a long time, today _mattered_.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

Of the things Michael thought likely to see when the door to his workspace opened, Alex Mahone wouldn't have even made the list of possible contenders. But there he was, looking relieved and anxious all at once.

"Michael... We've gotta go, _now_ ," Alex said urgently as severe looking blonde appeared over his shoulder, talking quietly to herself or - more likely - into a very tiny headset.

He wanted to. _God_ , but he wanted to. There was nothing in the world he wanted more than to be free of this place. Nothing, that is, except his family's safety.

"I... I can't," Michael responded with some effort.

"What are you talking about?" Alex asked, blinking at him in disbelief.

"They'll kill Sara and Linc," Michael replied. "And they'll take my son. I can't lea-"

"They're here," the woman interrupted brusquely. "Lincoln and Sara are here, looking for you. And your son is safe."

He hadn't even entertained the notion of escape for so long that the very idea felt foreign to him. And, to be totally honest, he'd _never_ thought about the possibility of a rescue, not after finding out how long had already passed by the time he'd woken up in this place.

"You'd be Jane, I presume?" Michael asked a little warily, recalling Linc's description of their father's associate years ago.

Para-military Barbie wasn't that far off the mark.

The woman nodded sharply in affirmation before scanning their surroundings again, practiced gaze sweeping the room. And, for the first time since his door opened, Michael dared to allow the tiniest bloom of hope that this might actually be happening.

"Yes, _I know_ ," Jane was saying into her headset with some urgency before turning back to him. "Michael, I know this is a shock, but we have to move. _Now_. The gunshots set off the alarms and any second every Company agent on this island will be looking for us."

As she finished speaking, footsteps fast and heavy thundered down the hall. Jane turned swiftly, gun already raised, but lowered it almost immediately. The footfalls didn't falter in the least. And seconds later, Lincoln's burly frame filled the doorway.

"Linc?" Michael asked, disbelief and hope choking his voice.

"Mike," Lincoln breathed in relief, crossing the room in three big strides to hug his brother tightly. "We thought we'd lost you, man."

Michael nodded hard against Lincoln's shoulder, the sturdiness of his older brother's frame a solid reassurance that this was _real_. This was happening. His brother was _here_. He couldn't have let go in that moment if his life had depended on it.

"You did," he replied eventually.

He was pretty sure both he and Lincoln were crying, but someone else was _sobbing_... speaking very rapidly in Spanish and throwing their arms around both him and Linc.

"Sucre," Michael smiled in realization before even seeing the other man.

With only a moment of hesitation, he let go of his brother to give the other man a quick embrace. His attention, though, shifted very quickly once he spotted someone else over his friend's shoulder, lingering in the doorway. His arms fell away from Sucre and he felt suddenly like he couldn't breathe.

"Sara," he somehow whispered, feet moving toward her of their own accord.

Her willowy frame shook visibly, hands shuddering under the strain of adrenaline and emotion, and he could practically _feel_ relief pouring off of her in waves. She stared at him like he was a ghost, like she couldn't quite believe he was actually standing in front of her.

He knew the feeling.

Reaching out tentatively, half-afraid of startling her and half-afraid he'd lost his mind and his hands would slide right through a fully realized hallucination, he wrapped his arms gently around Sara. Her solid body leaned heavily against his and he tightened his grip, burying his face in her hair. His eyes clenched shut, blocking out the sound of the klaxxon and Jane's voice as he breathed in her scent and held her familiar lithe form against him.

It was almost too much to bear. Too much of what he wanted, given to him all at once. This was what the pictures on his wall could never offer.

He didn't want to let her go. He wanted to hold her and kiss her deeply and just _be_ with her, but the steady sound of the alarm and the increasing urgency in Jane's voice pulled him back to reality. He kissed her temple before stepping back an arm's length and bringing her hand to his lips to kiss her knuckles. Her breath caught a little at the gesture and their eyes locked, conveying in silence things that words alone could never capture.

"Reunions later," Jane interrupted. "Or there won't _be_ a later."

"They'll be in the building by now," said one of three men Michael had never seen before, all standing beside Jane.

"Yes, but their communications are down, so they'll be far less coordinated," said another of the men, a weedy looking man with thick-rimmed glasses who smiled like he was wincing. "I've gummed up the works. They'll be down for the duration. Video and audio."

"Good work, Morris," Jane praised. 'We need to get to the roof."

"It's too late for that," Michael responded, mentally calculating about how long the alarm had been sounding. "I tried to escape once, a long time ago. They found me on the roof in under five minutes... then they had someone beat the hell out of LJ and they threatened to kill my son if I ever tried to escape again."

Lincoln swore colorfully as Sara made a low, choked noise and covered her mouth with her palm. Alex looked away, gaze settled somewhere down the hall as he blinked hard, his mouth set in a grim line.

"Well, if you've got any brilliant plans for getting out of here, now would be a great time to share them," one of other men said, addressing Michael.

"Me?" Michael asked, pale eyes widening in surprise. "You broke in here - with Sara and Linc - without a plan to get us out if an _alarm_ went off?"

"Well... at least we don't have to worry about the deadline now, right?" Sucre asked, looking on the bright side. "No worries about facial recognition software kicking in when they already know we're here."

Michael _really_ didn't like the look Jane's men gave each other.

"The deadline wasn't for their software," Jane admitted, her tone low and dangerous. "It's for the bombs we placed. We have twenty minutes to get off this island or we blow up along with everything here."

"You... _are you fucking kidding me?_ " Linc spoke lowly, voice seething with barely controlled anger.

"How did you _think_ I got approval for this mission?" Jane asked, casting a derisive look of disbelief at Lincoln. "Our goal has _always_ been to bring down the Company. We weren't about to miss an opportunity to blow up one of their main centers of operation just because it's _dangerous_."

"You've got to know a way to get out of this building," one of Jane's men insisted, looking toward Michael again. "Don't you have a photographic memory or something?"

"I _notice_ everything. I don't _remember_ everything," Michael said with annoyance. "If I did, I could have avoided a rather extensive piece of body art."

In spite of the situation, Lincoln snorted in amusement a few steps behind him.

"But..." Michael said, pausing a moment, eyes tracing Sara's face. "I might have an idea."

"Good," Jane replied sharply.

"Strip one of the dead guards of his uniform," Michael instructed Jane's men, moving back to his computer as he spoke.

As Jane's men worked, Michael grabbed a flash drive from the computer and slipped it subtly into his pocket, giving Lincoln a significant look. Lincoln raised an eyebrow but said nothing in reply. Michael had given years of his life to decoding The Company's secrets. No way he was letting the nearly-completed puzzle go up in flames now.

Seconds later, he took the dead guard's clothes and slipped them on over his own. They were ill-fitting, too short in the leg and too bulky across the chest, but he stood out less and that was the whole point.

"Good," he nodded, glancing up toward the clock with a wince. "Now we need to head toward the infirmary."

"If you're going after Doctor Middleton," Jane began, "I get it, but there really isn't-"

"Not exactly," he interrupted as he moved past Jane into the corridor. "Just her lab coat."

"I don't understand," Jane said, following a few steps behind him along with the rest of their group. "What's in her lab coat?"

"Nothing," Michael smirked at the blonde. "...Yet."

He clearly didn't intend to explain himself - there really wasn't time to, anyhow - so Jane just huffed as she followed along.

"It's a good idea," Alex said as his mind puzzled things out, drawing Michael's attention and earning a grin in reply.

The honest smile felt foreign on his face, almost like his muscles had forgotten how. With so much time passed, so much having happened to _him_ these past few years, discovering that he and Alex still thought alike almost felt like a relief, like proof-positive that - in some small way - he was still the same man he'd been back at Fox River.

"Are you... How are you?" Sara asked, matching his steps, eyes curious and voice hushed.

It was simultaneously the easiest and most complicated question in the world to answer in that moment.

"Better than I've been in years," he told her honestly, smile dimmed a little but just as sincere as before.

"Good. That's... good," Sara replied at his rudimentary answer. "Are there any health concerns I should know about before-"

"DOWN," Jane yelled, a fraction of a second before shots rang out.

Unarmed and running on years-old instinct, he dove, pulling Sara to the floor with him and covering her body with his own. Likely due to the same instinct, Linc and Sucre stepped in front of both of them, shooting even as they moved.

Maybe it had been years since he'd heard the thundering crack of gunfire or the anguished cry that inevitably broke free as a bullet found its mark, but those weren't the kind of sounds you ever forgot. Michael stayed stock still with Sara's head pulled against his chest until the noises stopped.

He dared a peak then, toward the Company agents who'd been shooting at them. Three men lay at the end of the hall, a rapidly growing pool of blood and gore surrounding them. He breathed a sigh of relief at the sight and momentarily felt sick at his own reaction. When was it, exactly, that the death of _anyone_ had started to sit well with him?

"Michael? Sara? You hit?" Linc asked, voice urgent and more than a little panicked sounding.

"No. I _listened_ ," Michael replied, shaking off his earlier thoughts and gripping his brother's proffered hand to help himself up before turning to help Sara to her feet.

"I'm supposed to be saving _you_ ," Sara pointed out as she stood up and dusted herself off.

Before he could offer up some incredibly cheesy but truthful and hopefully endearing line about how she'd saved him years ago, Jane's voice broke in.

"Sara, we need a doctor over here," Jane barked out.

"Oh, fuck. No, you don't," one of Jane's men said, looking down at the blood seeping out between the fingers of his hand pressed to his own abdomen.

"It's not a killshot, Oliver," Jane argued.

"Maybe, maybe not," Oliver replied as Sara hurried to his side and pried his hand off of the wound to get a better look. "But the bombs will get me and if you try to stop and help me they'll get you too. Then this will _all_ be for nothing."

"He's losing blood fast," Sara confirmed. "The bullet probably hit an artery. He'd need extensive surgery right now and even if we had the facilities and the time, I'm not a surgeon."

"Oliver..." one of Jane's other men said, obviously warring with what to say.

"It's fine, Greg," Oliver told him, trying to shrug and mostly failing. "Think I'm in shock, so that's good anyhow. I'm just gonna sit back and take a rest here while you guys go on and do the hard work."

"Anything you want me to tell your sister?" Jane asked, her tone rushed but sympathetic.

"She thinks I'm an accountant in Toledo," he replied. "So maybe that number crunching turned out to be more hazardous than I thought. Gotta watch for all those papercuts. Quit being sentimental saps and go. I'm just gonna play dead til I am dead. Hopefully pop a few Company goons before I go kaboom."

Michael had seen a lot of people die. Too many. Some looked at their own death with a sense of disbelief. Some never saw it coming at all. But never had he seen someone who was _funny_ while breathing their last breaths. He wondered, momentarily, what it was that had led Oliver to this life.

"Thank you, Oliver," Michael said with sincerity.

"Get outta here," Oliver replied, gesturing with a bloodied hand.

"Which way?" Jane asked, her two remaining able-bodied men looking grim-faced and ashen at her side.

"It's not far," Michael replied, leading the group back down the hallway, stepping over the bodies of the Company agents as they went, blood staining the soles of their shoes.

Moments later they burst through the doors to the empty infirmary. For once, the alarm going off seemed to be working in their favor, medical personnel having cleared out of the facility.

"Michael, why are we here?" Sara asked him as he grabbed Doctor Middleton's coat off of a hook near the door and stared at it for a moment.

"Sara..." he said, voice hesitating before he pressed onward. "You need to put this on."

"What?" she asked, looking apprehensively at the lab coat.

"Doctor Middleton's gone to an awful lot of trouble to look like you. It's only fair you return the favor," he replied and she hesitantly took the coat from his hands.

" _That's_ your plan?" Greg asked acerbically. "A lab coat as a disguise? You don't have like... an escape hatch or something?"

"This isn't exactly the Chateau D'If," he countered. "No one is going to question Doctor Middleton. Especially not with the alarms going.

"Sara," he said more urgently, turning toward her. "Put that on, walk purposefully and try not to talk to anyone and we'll _all_ be able to walk right out of this building."

She looked sick at the very idea of wearing the lab coat, like enshrouding herself in the other woman's clothing would somehow blur the lines between them. But she did it anyhow, jaw set and face too pale. All-in-all, it helped her impersonation, but Michael wasn't about to tell her that.

"Good..." he said. "Good."

"Stairs?" Jane asked.

Michael glanced at the watch on Sara's wrist as it ticked over to 11:47. His heart pounded too loudly and he gulped heavily as he nodded.

"Better hurry," he said and he heard Sucre swear softly in Spanish as he looked down at his own watch.

No one ordered for them to form a protective circle around Sara as they walked, but they did it anyhow. It probably helped achieve the effect they were going for. Doctor Middleton, Michael decided, was absolutely the kind of person to have her own emergency security detail.

The first time they rounded a corner and found themselves face-to-face with Company agents - seven of them - Michael tensed and watched out of the corner of his eye as Jane's hand instinctively fell toward her gun.

For a long moment, Michael questioned himself. Even given Doctor Middleton's best efforts to look like Sara, the differences between them jumped out at him first. She was cold and calculating and ruthless where Sara was warm and genuine and caring. The idea that the doctor ever thought he might confuse the two confounded him. But then, wasn't he assuming the same of _every_ guard between here and freedom?

Two of the Company men looked to each other in silent communication - a lifted eyebrow here, a shrug of a shoulder there - before one of them turned to face Sara directly. It literally took everything he had not to grab her hand as she stood before their scrutiny.

"Why are you on this side of the building?" Sara asked, preempting them with a sharp tone and an impatient look.

The impatience probably wasn't faked. Michael glanced at Sara's watch, the second hand seemingly hurrying by at double speed.

"The comms are down and Pederson said we should-"

"Pederson was wrong," Sara interrupted. "Secure the infirmary."

The Company guards looked to each other with a little hesitancy and Michael could feel his pulse beating loudly in his throat as they collectively came to some kind of decision.

" _Now_ ," Sara ordered with a bit more instancy, eyes wide and hands on her hips.

"Yes, ma'am," replied the one who'd initially answered her.

They didn't wait for the guards to disappear around the corner, instead continuing their hurried trek to the stairwell. Michael waited until they'd hit the first steps before letting a long sigh of relief breeze through his lips.

"Nice job, doc," Lincoln muttered from the other side of Sara.

"Remind me to write my high school drama teacher a thank you note after we get out of here," Sara replied with a short laugh.

"You took drama?" Michael questioned with a little amusement.

"Yeah. Well... it ticked off my father," she replied, lips quirking into a half-grin before pressing together as she tried to slide back into character.

"Do we know where Doctor Middleton actually is right now?" Michael wondered aloud, eyes fixing on the back of Jane's ponytail as he spoke.

"No," the blonde replied succinctly as her combat boots tromped onto the bottom landing.

"She disappeared off my surveillance cams about half an hour before you guys showed up," Morris chimed in, pushing his glasses further up the bridge of his nose as he spoke. "She's on the island, but that's all I got."

"That could prove... problematic," Alex pointed out.

"No options," Jane replied as she swung open the door to the outside. "And no time to worry about it."

"True enough," Alex muttered as they all flooded out the door onto the sand-covered ground, shimmering as it reflected the blinding security lights.

Reflexively, Michael took a big gulp of fresh air and shuddered at the feel of a light breeze rolling across his face. After years upon years in captivity, he couldn't _not_ savor the scant bit of freedom he'd just earned, no matter how dire their situation. If they got out of this - _when_ they got out of this - he suspected he'd spend a great deal of time outdoors, revelling in the feel of the sun on his skin and the smell of pending rainfall.

"This way," Jane commanded, nodding her head toward the side and pulling his attention back to the here-and-now.

Turning around the side of the building, Michael nearly knocked Sucre over as the other man stopped abruptly in the more dimly lit area. To his side, Lincoln groaned and ran his fingers over his smooth scalp as Sara entire frame drooped in a way that screamed of defeat.

"What?" Michael asked, "what's the..."

"They found our scuba gear," Jane responded as he followed her gaze to find Company agents half-visible beneath the dock. "And we have four minutes left."

"You have a boat?" Michael asked.

"Off-shore," Jane confirmed.

"Swim for it?" Sara suggested.

"They'd shoot us out of the water," Greg replied with a grim shake of his head.

"Better to risk that than get blown to hell," Lincoln replied.

"That's not a plan. That's a Hail Mary to the end-zone," Jane countered.

"Then what do we do?" Sara asked, a sense of urgency coloring her voice.

"What we have to," Greg replied dully, something bleeding out of his voice as he spoke.

A fraction of a second later, Michael heard the soft click of a gun cocking and turned with surprise to find Greg training a pistol at his head.

"You son of a-" Jane started, taking a step toward Greg before halting as he pressed the weapon more firmly against Michael's skull.

"You know as well as I do that we can't let the Company recapture him," Greg told her solemnly, a tinge of regret shading his voice.

Sara's gaze locked with his, terror and desperation flooding her eyes. But it was Linc's voice that fully brought the weight of the situation into reality.

"I will _end_ you, you son of a bitch," Lincoln swore lowly, his voice seething as his fingers clenched into tightly formed fists at his side.

"We don't have time for this," Michael stated. "If we don't get out of here in the next three and a half minutes, that gun is redundant."

"So what do we do?" Sara's voice broke in, voice hurried and more desperate than he could remember since that awful shack in Panama.

"Exactly what we've been doing," Michael answered, ignoring the gun and looking Greg in the eye as he spoke. "Walk aboard that boat at the dock with Sara posing as Dr. Middleton. It's our only chance."

"If this fails..." Greg said, hesitance echoing in his voice.

"If this fails we're almost certainly all dead anyhow," Michael reminded him. "But give me a gun and I'll make sure that one way or the other, they won't recapture me.'

"Michael!" Lincoln protested sharply, eyes widened in horror at the implications of Michael's statement.

"I'm not spending the next few decades locked in a room decoding things for the enemy, Linc," he said, avoiding looking at either his brother or Sara as he spoke. "Three minutes, Greg. What's it gonna be?"

The other man paused a beat, then two, and it felt like forever even if it was probably scarcely more than a second. But ultimately, he flipped the gun around and handed it to Michael.

"Good," Michael said briskly, tucking the weapon into his waistband as he gestured to Lincoln and Sucre to stand down. "Let's go."

The floodlights actually worked to their advantage, backlighting them and obscuring their features as the group hurried across the sand in a way that wasn't quite a run but was certainly more than a walk. Company agents were seemingly everywhere - posted near doorways and perched on the rooftops and all over the dock. But none of them looked at their group twice and no one seemed to think anything of their hurried pace, given the circumstances.

"What do we do if there are people on the boat?" Sara's voice asked in a hushed tone, her eyes flickering to the gun at his waist as she spoke.

Michael's footsteps stuttered at her question. There wasn't an escape plan here. He hadn't researched this. There were no contingency plans branded to his skin. This was coping as they went and eeking out survival by the skin of their teeth. He didn't have an answer for her. To be honest, he hadn't even considered the _question_.

"We have guns," Lincoln said, as if it was obvious, his glare fixed solidly on Greg as he spoke. 'We use them.''

"Occum's razor?" Michael questioned, realizing that Lincoln's simple solution might actually be the best in this case.

Lincoln shot him a sideways look that obviously questioned his sanity.

"No, Lincoln's bullets. Who the fuck is Occum?" he asked bewilderedly.

"Nevermind," Michael replied, fighting a smirk and Sara tried, mostly successfully, to hide a sharp burst of laughter.

They were cutting it close, he knew. Too close. But it still surprised him when - with one foot aboard the dock and one finally stepping onto the promised safe haven of the boat, a deafening series of booms sounded and his body pitched forward as the air surged against his back. People screamed in the not-so-far-off distance and it didn't take a genius to realize that even trained assassins would panic and run for the only boat under these circumstances.

"Go, go, go," Michael said with increasing urgency, pushing Sara onboard ahead of him, most everyone else following shortly after in her wake.

Jane and Greg lingered on the dock a second, surveying the damage to the facilities, looking far less satisfied than Michael would have expected given the carnage they'd wrought.

"It must have gotten wet on the swim over," Greg said, looking at one small, freestanding building that hadn't been taken down in the blasts. "Shorted out the timer, maybe."

Jane just looked at him, regret painting her face, and Michael couldn't quite suss out what was happening between the two before Greg spoke again.

"Well... it's my mission," he nodded, checking his clip before stepping down the dock away from the boat.

"Godspeed," Jane said solemnly and Greg just nodded before heading off toward the building.

"Jane, we don't have time to wait around for-" Michael began.

"That's the data hub for this entire branch of The Company," Jane said as she and Michael finally stepped wholly aboard the boat, Jane not looking over her shoulder in Greg's direction even once. "Greg will get the bomb to go off. He always gets the job done. But he's going to have to do it manually. He won't be able to escape the blast radius."

Michael wasn't sure what to think about that. Hell, he wasn't sure how to _feel_ about that given that the man in question had held a gun to his head not even five minutes prior but had paradoxically risked his life to save him. But as it turned out, he didn't have the opportunity to respond anyhow because the crack of gunfire sounded suddenly, loud and far too close, rattling his feet and jarring his mind.

It took only a fraction of a second to realize that the gunfire was happening below deck.

"Sara? Linc!" Michael yelled, voice unsteady and vision hazy with panic and terror.

He hurried below deck, gun drawn, with Jane close on his heels. Rationally, he knew there'd be blood, probably bodies, and maybe he'd lost someone he loved, someone he'd only just regained. He simultaneously tried to steel himself against those possibilities and shut them out of his head entirely. But nothing, _nothing_ could have actually prepared him for the sight that greeted him below deck.

There were bodies splayed across the floor - messy and gruesome, but no one he knew - and a woman, tall and slender with auburn hair and cold eyes, stood with three guns trained on her.

Michael froze, eyes wide and throat sandpaper-dry, feeling like all the air had been sucked out of the room.

"Well," Jane said from his side, a predatory grin slowly taking over her face. "Doctor Middleton. This _is_ a surprise."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra special kudos to Andacus on this chapter for making it not sound like Sara misread wikipedia to get all of her medical knowledge and continuing thanks to FoxRiverInmate for her amazing cheerleading skills and grammatical error catches.


	10. Chapter 10

** Chapter Ten **

Unexpectedly face-to-face with Doctor Middleton for the first time, something primal and angry rose up from the roots of Sara's soul and the only thing that kept her from pulling the trigger of the gun she had trained on the other woman was Alex's steadying hand on her elbow. She'd killed before, of course. Both times in self-defense. Or Michael-defense, but that amounted to the same thing. This would be vengence. This would be murder. And Alex, better than most, had to know what such an act might do to her.

The woman looked more like her stunt double than her doppelganger, but the resemblance was strong enough that Sara _hated_ her. Hated her like she'd never hated anyone before. Hated her for what she tried to do and hated her on behalf of all the things done to Michael and her and Lincoln for years. She was a symbol, a personification of The Company and all of its wrongs. She was Gretchen Morgan with a hacksaw and Paul Kellerman with an iron and Christina Scofield with a pistol.

And she was standing unarmed three feet away.

"You'll be _very_ useful," Jane's voice pronounced, breaking through the haze of ire that had clouded Sara's mind.

And there it was. The best reason there was not to put a bullet through the so-called Doctor's skull. The Company was a cancer on their lives and on the world. And whatever information Dr. Middleton might have, whatever edge she might give them in evading or destroying the malignant organization, was worth more than the fleeting satisfaction that vengeance offered.

Decision still hardening in her mind, Sara's hands tremored, grip tight on the firearm that remained trained on the other woman. There were so many people in the small room, but even with Jane speaking in the background and with Michael steps away, it was Sara that Dr. Middleton's eyes stayed locked on, surveying, appraising, chillingly cold.

"We're not out of the woods yet," Jane reminded them. "Sucre, you know how to pilot this thing?"

"If it's got an engine, I can drive it," he grinned confidently.

"Good. Take Morris to watch your back and get us out of here," Jane ordered before shifting her gaze in Sara's direction. "Sara, Michael, Linc... take a walk."

"Excuse me?" Sara asked disbelievingly.

"Alex and I can handle this better without you here," Jane said bluntly. "Get above deck, keep your weapons on you and keep watch."

"You're taller than I thought," Doctor Middleton said suddenly, as if Jane hadn't just spoken.

Sara's whole frame tensed and her brow knit as she stared at the other woman, a demure parody of a smile twisting Doctor Middleton's lips.

"I should have worn higher heels," she followed up.

"You son of a-" Sara started, feet stepping forward seemingly of their own accord.

Later, she'd be pretty sure that Doctor Middleton had been baiting her, trying to get her to shoot. And, in fact, she might have succeeded in just that had Alex not swiped the gun out of her hand and had Lincoln not grabbed her by the shoulders to keep her back.

"Above deck," Jane reiterated sharply, " _Now_."

"Come on," Linc said, squeezing her shoulders lightly before turning her toward the door, one of his hands dropping to grab her gun from Alex's extended hand, but the other one firmly guiding her.

As soon as she faced away from Doctor Middleton, it was Michael who filled her vision. She couldn't even begin to hazard a guess at what he was feeling in this moment, didn't know what he needed or how to be there for him through all of this. But she knew she wanted to. And, she knew that focusing on Doctor Middleton's barbs meant she wasn't focusing on helping Michael. Put that way, it was easier than she'd thought it would be to let her ire melt away, soften into insignificance.

Before her, Michael blinked a couple of times at Doctor Middleton and gulped visibly as his gaze flicked toward Sara. Even knowing him as well as she did, she couldn't interpret the hardened look on his face, the blank stare. And, for not the first time, she worried at how close to the mark Jane had been in her comments about Michael's probable mental state.

In some ways, the door closing behind her as the three of them made their way above deck felt symbolic. The sea air was crisper, lighter, and she wasn't the only one breathing it in deeply, letting its cleansing nature wash over her.

Michael's hands gripped the boat's railing, white-knuckled against the metal, his long, lean frame hunched forward and his eyes shut in the face of a light sea breeze. Something in Sara's chest clenched tightly at the sight as a small smile worked its way across his lips and she realized he wasn't overwhelmed in this moment, he was _enjoying_ it. And, God but that was a beautiful sight.

Lincoln thumped his brother against his back, firm and solid, like he was trying to convince himself that the younger man was actually there before leaning against the rail next to him. Sara understood the impulse. It all still felt more than a little unreal to her, too.

"You owe me twenty bucks," Linc said after a moment, earning a subdued and somewhat confused glance from his brother.

"Miami Heat won in '06," Linc clarified and Michael laughed sharply in response, the sound ringing in Sara's ears.

"I'm just supposed to take your word on this?" Michael questioned.

"Would I lie to you?" Linc challenged.

"About a bet?" Michael laughed, an eyebrow raised in disbelief.

"Sara, back me up here," Linc called over his shoulder in a somewhat transparent attempt to drag her into the conversation.

"Basketball's not my sport," she replied, content to give the brothers their space for now and wary of pushing Michael too far too fast.

"Eh," Linc grumbled, waving a hand in her direction dismissively. "Not her sport... she's a giant. She should _play_ basketball."

"A giant, huh? Just what every girl loves to hear," Sara replied lightly, leaning back against the cabin door, arms crossed casually in front of her, one foot planted against the fiberglass.

"Yeah, I'm a people-pleaser. You didn't know that about me?" Linc asked sarcastically before turning back to Michael. "So, twenty bucks, dude. Pay up."

"Must have left my wallet in the other dead guard's uniform," Michael replied a minute later, patting down the pockets of his ill-fitting disguise.

"Welcher," Linc accused.

It was light, easy conversation, but as it drifted along, the weight of everything unsaid still hung in the air, awaiting acknowledgement.

"What else have I missed?" Michael asked finally, eyes fixed on the horizon toward the quickly shrinking island prison.

There was no easy answer to that question. And he did deserve an answer. The truth was, he'd missed _life_. And neither she nor Linc seemed sure where to start in reply.

"Kellerman's still a Congressman," Linc began finally. "Still a jackass, too, but he actually... helped us a little. Getting us here."

"As long as he isn't expecting a thank you note," Michael responded dryly. "What else?"

He'd turned around at the question, leaning back against the rail and facing away from the ocean and the fading island.

"Caroline Reynolds died about two years ago," Sara offered up. "Car accident."

"Sure it was," Michael replied with a knowing air of disbelief.

"We believed it at the time," Linc shrugged. "We didn't know any better. Didn't have any damn idea that the Company had survived."

"Yeah," Michael exhaled thinly. "They're good at that. I'm just glad they mostly left you guys alone."

"They executed the General," Linc continued on.

"I know," Michael said, glancing askance at his brother. "And I don't care about Kellerman or President Reynolds or the General. I don't care that the Heat won in '06. I want to know the important stuff. I want to know what I _missed_."

His voice had grown steadily more emotional as he spoke and Sara shared a silent look with Linc that spoke volumes. Relaying world events to Michael was easy. This was not. Good memories they'd feel guilty about and bad ones he'd feel guilty about not having been there.

"Sara," Michael said a little brokenly, eyes boring into her with a look that seemed almost desperate. "What's his _name_?"

Her heart stuttered in her chest and her eyes stung suddenly. This man - this beautiful, dedicated, selfless man - had been denied even the name of his only child.

"Michael," she replied a little grittily before realizing she might need to expand a little on that. "His name's Michael. Mikey, most of the time."

She could _see_ the breath catch in his throat.

"You named him after me?" he questioned, even though the answer was obvious.

"Of course," she replied. "Of course I did. I didn't even consider anything else. God, Michael, you're his father and you _died_ saving us. Of course I did."

"What's... what's he like?" Michael asked, eager and nervous all at once.

"He's you," Lincoln said suddenly, drawing Michael and Sara's attention. "Well, you know, he's _shorter_... for now. But he's just... he's you, man."

"He's sweet and he's smart and he's just full of questions about everything," Sara elaborated. "He wants to know how everything works and why. Sometimes he comes off as shy, but really it's just that he's so focused on what he's doing that he doesn't want to acknowledge what's going on around him. He's just... he's perfect."

Michael blinked quickly and gazed skyward in such a way that Sara knew he was fighting back tears. Linc must have known too because he looked away, uneasy in the face of raw emotion. Michael pushed the heels of his palms against his eyes and sighed away the weight that had been resting on his shoulders.

"And he's healthy?" Michael asked, eyes refocusing on Sara.

"His pediatrician says so," she replied, wanting nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and hold him close, but wary of his reaction.

She wrapped her arms tighter around herself instead.

"But he has LLI," Michael stated.

It definitely wasn't a question.

"We don't know that," Linc said softly.

"Yes," Sara contradicted. "We do. It might not be in his medical file but... he has it. I'm sorry, but you and I both know that's true, Linc."

"I still think you're jumping the gun," Linc replied.

"I know you do," Sara responded. "But I know my son and I know the signs of LLI."

"He's... he's smart though?" Michael asked. "He's managing it okay?"

"He's very smart," Sara reassured him. "And he's doing fine with it. I've been looking into techniques for helping him focus on certain details but, honestly, he's pretty good at doing that already when he wants to. He'll sit through an entire episode of Bob the Builder without paying attention to anything else. He'll just also ask later why I stirred my tea three times in one direction and only twice in the other or tell me that four of his blue blocks have a chip in them but only one red one does."

Michael nodded solidly, looking a little lost in thought, brow knit and tension working its way back into his shoulders.

"You being there will be a huge help," Sara told him.

He looked up suddenly at that, hope and longing shining so obviously in his eyes. It almost hurt to look at. He'd had nothing - _nothing_ \- for so long, not even hope for a better future, that it must have felt impossible now to have so much of what he wanted within his grasp.

"You know more about dealing with it than I could ever hope to learn," she continued, knowing it was both the absolute truth and exactly what he needed to hear. "And you're his father. He needs you. He _has_ needed you. He's happy and he's healthy but no amount of me and Linc and Sofia and LJ in his life has made up for not having you."

He was hesitant to believe her. She could tell. His sense of self-worth had never been good but years of being treated as nothing more than a resource to be exploited had clearly made it worse.

He smiled at her, but she got the sense that it was mostly just to make her happy. Her answering smile mirrored his, thin and a little sad. Linc, apparently, missed the unspoken exchange entirely.

"Yeah, someone's gotta tell him how shit works and that isn't gonna be me or Sara, man," Linc grinned broadly.

"Why do you always assume that I know _everything_?" Michael asked, smile broadening a little as he looked toward Linc.

"Cause you usually do," Linc laughed sharply.

Michael tilted his head a little in reply, a tacit agreement, but said nothing.

The background noise of the engine petered out and the boat slowed to a crawl as Sara spotted their yacht just a few dozen meters away.

"Well thank goodness we didn't have any more problems because I think we are actually the worst lookouts in history," Sara pronounced, realizing they'd paid little if any attention to their surroundings during their conversation.

"We blew 'em all up," Linc pointed out.

"Then why did Jane tell us to keep watch?" Sara questioned.

"Um, because she's paranoid?" Linc replied with no small amount of snark in his voice.

"Not paranoid enough," Michael muttered back in reply, obviously recalling her man's attempt to kill him.

Sara looked away as she privately worried about what other orders Jane's people might have. Mikey, after all, was in the care of one of them. How much did she really know about Natalie Stark? Virtually nothing, when it came down to it. She couldn't voice this though. Not here. Not now. Michael had enough to process at the moment. He didn't need to worry more about Mikey on top of everything. And besides, even though she might not know Natalie, she _did_ know Felicia and Sofia and LJ. And she knew all three of them would die to save her son, if necessary.

She just wished that was enough to reassure her.

Moments later, Jane came out on deck and the group moved to their boat from the Company one. Sara barely caught a glimpse of Doctor Middleton as Alex escorted her into the smallest room of the yacht, her hands tied behind her back and a gun trained on her the whole time. Fleetingly, Sara wondered if Jane and Alex were guarding the woman so tightly to ensure she wouldn't escape or to ensure that Sara and Linc wouldn't kill her. A little of both, most likely, she decided.

As soon as they were clear of the Company boat, Jane detonated explosives she'd placed aboard it. It was less violent than Sara would have expected, Jane having placed the bombs strategically. The ocean's surface rippled suddenly, a sizeable swell working its way outward from the smaller boat as it slowly capsized.

Jane was thorough, Sara had to give her that, but she had to wonder if the other woman's penchant for tying up loose ends was a practice left over from her time in The Company.

Free from his piloting duties for the moment, Sucre barrelled toward Michael, enveloping him again in a giant hug. They fell into easy conversation, unabashed joy radiating off of Michael's former cellmate as he spoke. There were no awkward silences to fill because, honestly, there was never _any_ silence to fill with Fernando around. His jubilance was contagious and soon enough Michael's smiles were full and genuine.

It was beautiful to see and Sara was honestly glad for him to have this moment with his brother and his best friend. But she also wanted badly to have some time to talk with him alone. They were private people, always had been, and she was aching to really _talk_ to him, find out how he was, how they stood. Still... she couldn't get herself to interrupt this. Not when Michael was smiling like that and Lincoln's laugh was so full and rich.

Curling up on a chair, Sara tucked her legs under herself and enjoyed the conversation. She chimed in occasionally and Michael's eyes seemed to linger on her well after she spoke, but mostly she just listened as Sucre told stories about his little girl and Linc went on about the dive shop. After a while, she yawned hugely and felt her eyes drooping with exhaustion, the events of the day catching up with her.

"I think I'm gonna try to get some rest guys," Sara announced suddenly, unfolding her legs from beneath her and stretching as she stood.

"Want some company?" Michael asked, a very good approximation of lightness shading his voice.

She had to fight to keep the smile on her face to a reasonable size.

"Sure," she replied, her voice sounding a little hoarse even to her own ears.

Linc wagged his eyebrows suggestively at her and she smacked his shoulder - hard - as she passed by him with Michael close behind her and Fernando snickering nearby.

This wasn't about that. Okay, well, maybe she was hoping it was a _little_ about that. But, really, what she was hoping for right now was finding solid ground, figuring out where they stood and how to move forward. Whatever he needed, however he'd allow her to be a part of his life, she'd be there for him. She already knew that. What she didn't know yet was where he stood after everything he'd been through in the last four years, how much Doctor Middleton's attempts to get inside his head had really worked.

The small room felt tinier than it was as they strode in. She kept walking the few steps to the other side of the room. He stayed just inside the door as it shut behind him. The distance was palpable - a taut, heavy thing that spanned an ocean and years - but the pained look of longing in his eyes cut straight through all that and the sight of it made her breath go shallow.

"Sara..." he started, her name rough like sandpaper on his tongue.

Arms weighed-down heavily at her sides, she stood stock still save for a tiny nod of her head, urging him to continue on with whatever was on his mind.

"It's been years," he began, wincing a little as he spoke.

"Just over four years," she clarified, finding her voice as she realized he likely didn't honestly know _how_ long it had been.

"Four years..." he echoed, a mournful look on his face aging him before her eyes. "Sara, I... I just want you to know that I understand. I was dead and you were alive, young and beautiful and free. If you've found someone to share your life with, I'll respect that. I just... I just want you to be safe and happy."

She laughed in spite of herself, a short nervous thing that bubbled up inside her and set itself free against her own volition.

"Um, the only man in my life is about three and a half feet tall and he's got your eyes," she said in response, her voice turning up at the end like a question.

"Then... Sara, then why are you on the other side of the room?" Michael asked.

"She tried to look like _me_ , Michael," Sara replied, voice fierce and sincere. "God, after everything, after _everything_ , they locked you in a room with a warden who looked like me and they left you there. I just... I can't even imagine..."

"The more she tried to look like you, the more I saw all the ways she wasn't," Michael interrupted.

Out of all the possible things he could have said, that ranked right up there with the ones she most wanted to hear.

"I didn't want to overwhelm you," she explained.

"Sara," he said, shaking his head a little in disbelief, lips quirking into a familiar little half-smile.

"What?" She asked anxiously, getting the definite sense she was missing something.

"You've _always_ overwhelmed me," he told her.

Her eyes pinched shut against an onslaught of emotion, her hands shook and her jaw quivered and the ground felt unsteady beneath her feet. When her eyelids fluttered back open, he looked like a man waiting for an answer to a question he hadn't asked.

"That, uh, that charm act could get you in trouble if you're not careful," she said, voice shaking as badly as her hands but a nervous smile inching across her lips.

"I think I've heard that somewhere before," he replied, the corners of his eyes crinkling in amusement.

She shut her eyes and blew a nervous breath through thinned lips before meeting his intense gaze again. It struck her that he was looking at her like a wild animal that might bolt at any given moment, if provoked. And she wondered when, exactly, in all her worry over his state of mind and overwhelming him, this had all turned back around to be about her. It made sense, really, that Michael would hone in on her needs and her well-being, ignoring his own. He'd always done that. But what she'd failed to consider, what she hadn't really thought about, was that The Company had taken her future and her hopes away just as surely as they had Michael's. In light of that, it was understandable that she felt a little terrified with having all of that given back to her all at once.

"I'm going to kiss you, Sara," he said, all traces of amusement gone from his eyes, replaced with something more basic. "Unless you object."

She nodded fiercely by way of reply, her voice stuck somewhere in her throat as he slowly stepped across the room, cautious and wary, giving her plenty of time to voice objections she definitely didn't have.

He raised his hands to her face, long fingers stroking across the skin of her cheeks, burying his fingertips in the roots of her hair. She couldn't help the muffled little noise she made or the way her face curved to nuzzle his palm. It had been years since anyone had touched her like this; it had been years since she'd _wanted_ anyone to. But, _God_ had she missed it. She hadn't even realized how much she'd missed it.

The intensity of his gaze burned against her skin and she raised a palm of her own to trace the planes of his face. He shuddered a little under her touch, almost certainly unused to affection of any sort at this point. She ran her fingers along the rise of his cheekbone, the curve of his jaw, the swell of his lips. Her eyes lingered on his mouth, just inches away and so much clearer than any hazy half-remembered dream of him had ever been.

Her hand curled around to the back of his head, tangling in his too-long hair, but she didn't close the space between them, as much as she wanted to. That part she'd leave to him.

He leaned forward slowly and her eyes fluttered shut as she angled her face toward him. The pressure of his lips against hers was so controlled, so feather-light that it almost felt unreal. Both of them had their lips parted slightly, but the kiss itself was as innocent and as rife with meaning as anything she'd ever experienced.

After years of dreams where Michael would kiss her only to evaporate into thin air, she craved more, _needed_ more, to prove to herself that he was here and real and not about to fade away. Her fingers tightened in his hair a little and she nipped against his lips gently. He groaned in response, tightening his hold against her as the air shifted and the tone changed rapidly.

He had always been so careful, so controlled, in everything he did... right up until he wasn't. From the very beginning of their relationship, there had been little Sara relished more than the instant where Michael's restraint broke apart, splintering and shattering under her touch. There was something captivating about him when he wasn't thinking everything through, when everything wasn't calculated. And it was here, now, with gripping fingers and tugging teeth, that she'd brought that out in him again.

She hadn't even been aware of them moving, but they must have because all of the sudden her back hit the wall with a dull thud. This, she decided quickly, was a very good thing because she didn't know if she could rely on her legs to hold her upright with the way he was kissing her now, deep and hungry with total abandon. One of his hands drifted down to hold onto the curve of her hip as the other cradled the back of her head.

It was raw, fierce, a little sloppy. It felt like need and desperation, reaffirmation and defiance all wrapped into one. It was real - so, so real - and she was swept away by the force of it.

And then... and then, suddenly, he wasn't kissing her anymore. She trailed a little after his lips as he stepped back before looking back at him with confusion written in her eyes.

"Come on in," he called out, his kiss-swollen lips barely parted and his widely dilated eyes still trained exclusively on her as he spoke.

The door creaked open and it was only as Linc's burly frame filled the doorway that she realized that the pounding sound moments before had not only been her heart.

" _Please_ tell me what you could _possibly_ need right now," Sara demanded, fully aware that her clothes were rumpled and her hair mussed and there was absolutely no pretending that anything else had been going on moments before.

The set of his jaw and the way he couldn't meet her eye quickly morphed her anger into something else though, and her heart pounded loudly in her chest for entirely different reasons than it had moments previously.

"I'm sorry, guys, but... we've got a problem," he said hesitantly.

"What is it?" Sara asked, anxiety coloring her voice as she anticipated his answer.

"There's a posting on the message board-' he started before Sara interrupted him.

"They're all right," she said, as if she was willing it to be true. "You need to tell me right now that they're all right, Lincoln. You need to tell me that _my son is all right_."

"He's fine as far as we know," Linc said quickly, meeting her eyes for the first time since coming into the room, and Sara wasn't sure if she wanted to hug him or kill him in that moment. "But their location has been compromised. They're on the run and someone's hurt."

"Not Mikey?" Sara asked again, instincts as a mother with a child in danger damn near blinding her to everything else.

"We're pretty sure either Felicia or Sofia got shot," Linc said atonally.

"Oh Linc..." Sara said.

"How do you know?" Michael asked.

"We used the your old message boards and Natalie posted about an hour ago. Alex and Jane read it through a few minutes ago," Linc told him.

"What exactly did it say?" Sara asked.

"Uh... 'Group spotted in southeast Texas. Got a shot of an adult female before they all flew off. Predators scared them away,'" Linc recited from memory.

"We need to get to them _now_ ," Sara insisted.

"We're headed for the nearest coastal town, but we don't know where to _go_ ," Linc replied, mounting frustration evident in his voice. "We don't even know who the hell is after them!"

Something clicked in Sara's head at that.

"Where is she?" Sara demanded.

"Sara, there's no way Doctor Middleton could know anything about-" Linc began.

" _THEY ARE AFTER MY SON, LINC!"_ Sara shouted at him.

" _MY SON IS THERE TOO, SARA!"_ Linc roared back. "And my girlfriend who may or may not have been shot! We're gonna do everything we can but you've gotta calm down and get your head on straight or you're gonna be a liability and its gonna get someone killed!"

"Go to hell, Linc," she said lowly, pushing past him into the hall and bursting into the room across the way.

Jane didn't look even a little surprised to see her and the hungry look of curiosity on Doctor Middleton's face only served to incite Sara's anger more.

"Who's after them," she asked with no preamble as Michael and Linc followed her into the room.

"You didn't think this through at all did you?" Doctor Middleton asked, head quirked to the side as she spoke. "You opened Pandora's Box, Doctor Scofield."

" _Who's after them_?" Sara asked again more demandingly.

"You don't get it," Doctor Middleton said, shaking her head a little. "Everyone, Sara. _Everyone_ is after them."

"Why?" Sara asked.

"How many factions do you think are fighting for control of the Company? We had people at every level in every government and every major business in the world. How many of them want the power, the resources that the Company commanded?" Doctor Middleton inquired.

"What does that matter?" Sara asked irritatedly.

"Sara," Doctor Middleton tsked. "It's _all_ about power. It's _all_ about money. Our faction wasn't the only one who knew Michael was alive and we weren't the only ones to believe he could deliver us that power. But he was untouchable to the others when he was in our compound. Now... now there's blood in the water and they'll stop at _nothing_ to win."

"How did they find our people in the first place?" Jane asked.

"You had spies in our organization. Do you honestly think we didn't have any in yours?" Doctor Middleton asked with heavy disbelief.

"Who?" Jane asked.

"Sorry, not my department," Doctor Middleton answered coolly. "But... if I were you - and let me clarify here that as bad as my situation currently is, I'm pretty glad that I'm not - I'd keep my eye out for Doctor Irving."

To Sara's side, Michael's whole frame tensed and his eyes widened hugely.

"Repurposed, you said," he reminded her. "I figured that meant..."

"He saw which way the wind was blowing and jumped to another faction before he got the literal axe," she explained.

"Why are you telling us all this?" Linc asked.

"I have nothing to gain by keeping it from you. And you're the 'good guys' right? It's a lot less likely that you'll kill me if I play nice," she smiled insincerely.

"Don't count on it," Sara told her grimly.

"Who's Doctor Irving?" Jane asked, directing her question at Michael.

"Doctor Middleton's predecessor," he told her.

"He's a little more... unhinged these days, from what I understand," Doctor Middleton told them, studying Michael as she spoke. "He's the one who orchestrated your tumor in the first place, you know."

" _What?_ " Linc rumbled as Michael's lips parted in surprise.

"They purposefully only removed part of it in that first surgery," she told Michael. "It kept you dependent on us but allowed you the time to be useful to us, too. Why in the world would we have _really_ helped you and then set you free? What would have been the sense in that?

"I'm being helpful! Remember?" the captive asked, nodding toward her handcuffed wrists as Linc took a very threatening step toward her.

"We have to end this. We have to," Sara rambled, hands dragging heavily through her hair. "They can't keep _doing_ this to people. They can't! This can't be the way the world works. This can't be the way we live our lives!"

"We can't take them out, Sara," Michael said, his voice quiet and his eyes pensive.

"This is my son they're after!" Sara said insistently and Michael's pained eyes shot to hers.

"He's my son, too," he reminded her.

And, God, it was true. She knew it was true. She knew Michael loved their little boy with all his heart and would do anything, _anything_ to keep him safe. But it wasn't the same. He didn't _know_ him, hadn't helped him through colicky nights or kissed scraped knees. She'd been a single parent for her son's entire life. It was going to take a little getting used to to believe that wasn't true anymore.

"I know. Michael, _I know_ ," she said, grabbing both his hands in hers and searching his eyes with her gaze. "We have to do something. We can't let him grow up looking over his shoulder and jumping at every little sound."

"And we will do something. But taking down the Company isn't an option," he told her. "They have their hands in everything. There's too many of them and they're too well placed. Look at all the things they controlled when we took them down before. I'd bet anything that with their assets frozen the global economy has been hurt these last few years. How many businesses will topple if it's gone entirely? Even if we could do it. How many governments would fall?"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sara watched a very thin, very unsettling and _very_ triumphant-looking smile spread across Doctor Middleton's face. And she hated, _hated_ that the other woman had figured out whatever Michael was about to say

"What are you saying, man?" Linc asked, and Sara took a little solace in the fact that he looked as lost as she felt.

"We can't take them _out_ ," Michael said again, tension mounting in the room as he took a deep breath before continuing. "We have to take them _over_."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is currently where it ends. I'm keeping the door open on the possibility of continuing in this universe, but I'm not actively working on it at the moment. Thank you for taking the time to read my work! I hugely appreciate it! <3


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